On Sunday, February 16, 2014 7:55:35 AM UTC-6, Brian Reay wrote:


The vertical is something I have experimented with prior to buying the RV

during club mini-field week sessions and had good results with. I

previously I ran out a number of radials but this are too much of a trip

hazard on a campsite. I can reduce it to one, about 5% longer than the

vertical but I was looking for something 'out of the box'.



The antenna is on a tripod.

If you have to use the tripod, I would probably try to keep
the metal under the tripod as dense as possible, as that is
where a lot of ground loss is. A lot of short radials are better
than a few long ones for the same amount of wire.
Some type of screen or mesh that you could lay down might help a bit.

I found on mobile whips, the metal under the antenna is really
critical. I once ran a length of angle iron across the back of
my truck bed behind the rear cab window. It was well grounded,
and even had strap that ran from the bed sides to the base of
the antenna to make double sure it was well grounded.

It was horrible.

I finally came to the conclusion there just wasn't enough metal
under the whip, and just being well grounded by a strap was not
enough.
I moved the antenna over on to the top of the side tool boxes,
which are part of the truck, and gave more metal under the whip,
and the antenna came alive in it's normal fashion.
It was this experience which leads me to believe that trying
some kind of bumper hitch mount is basically a waste of time.
It may work, but nothing like it normally does on good metal.

I have another truck, and it's mount is on the side of the cab
with a big GE ball mount.
It's the best of the two. That antenna really cooks on that truck.