On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:53:55 -0400, Mike Coslo wrote:
Interesting! Your car being much more quiet might be the result of a
couple things. It is quite possible that you done good in the purchase.

2002 Ford Focus ZX3. Not selected for RF quietness. (when I bought it I
had no plans to operate mobile below 144MHz) Obviously it *is* reasonabl
y
quiet in terms of radiated RF, though conducted RF into the AM BCB radio
is pretty bad! (often the IC-706, with a 40m Hamstick, receives AM BCB
stations better than the car's own radio.....)

Unfortunately it's got 150,000 miles now & I'm starting to think about th
e
next vehicle. Guess I should take along the TH-F6 and a dozen feet of
wire or something.

Another possibility is that the bugcatchers are kind of a tour de force
in mobile antennas, and are designed to push every parameter in order t
o
maximaze efficiency as much as possible in the HF-unfriendly dimensions
available. High-Q coils (which even screwdrivers lack) and the necessar
y
short lengths of the entire antenna make all mobile HF setups pretty
marginal.I'm one inch short of the maximum height allowed for a vehicle
on US roads. The penalty for this is that the bugcatcher tunes extremel
y
sharply. I have 2 taps on the coil for 75 meters, and I'd probably need
several more to extend to 80 meters. On 40 and up, one tap per band is
usually sufficient.

At least on 40 that's wider than my Hamstick. Two settings are necessary
for useful operation across the band (one for CW and one for phone) and
even that's marginal. Never tried 80 without the tuner. 20/15/10 are
indeed useful without retuning.

My solution was to buy a LDG AT-7000 autotuner. I didn't expect much.
(just to be able to get full power from 7000 to 7050 without stopping to
retune) I have been VERY happily surprised. Not only does the tuner
promptly present a decent match to the radio across the entire 40m band
without adjusting the antenna, but efficiency is quite reasonable. No
problems in working DX from 7000 to 7300. With the 20m Hamstick in place
the autotuner also allows work on 30 and 17m - not very well, but it *is*
possible to make QSOs.

The efficiency may not be the best. But it does work, and pretty well.

Now all that being said, there is a lot of work in putting my HF mobile
setup together. I wanted/needed to tweak out every bit of performance
available for mobile contesting, and was willing to put the time into
it, which ended up being quite a lot of time. I did get to try it out
in the CAQSO party, and it worked okay on 20 meters, PA to CA. I got
good signal reports up and down the east coast on 40. On 80, well, they
didn't ever ask me to repeat myself. But anything below 40 meters is
dicey in operating mobile. I didn't get to use it in the PAQSO which wa
s
my main reason for putting it together, due to a death in the family.
Later this year, I'll do a more scientific test, as much as one can be
done with antennas by someone without access to an antenna range....

Mine kinda grew out of a FT-8900R installation. Was enjoying the heck ou
t
of 10m FM (and 6) but they weren't open enough. So I bought the 706 &
started gradually adding bands.

It probably would have made more sense to buy a Bugcatcher. (probably
cheaper than five Hamsticks and an autotuner)

Have used it in the TN QSO Party to the tune of 300-something QSOs. Also
the KY contest two years ago.

And oh yeah - the bugcatcher is quite a sight, especially on a little
Suziki Vitara, even more so, with a 20 inch capacity hat on it. Not
everyone wants to look like that.

One day with a previous mobile, I was listening to 27.185 for some reason
& heard a couple of truckers commenting about the "weird porcupine car"
with all the antennas. This thing probably triggers similar comments.
BCB rubber duckie, VHF/UHF tribander (antenna handles 222 but the radio
doesn't...), HF antenna, and then a second 2m antenna for occasional APRS
..
Then if the bike rack is on the car.....