After having my vehicle broken into recently and my vhf/uhf radio
stolen i decided to replace it with a FT-857D along with the ATAS
120a Antenna.
After reading lots of articals for and against the Atas i decided to
purchase one for my self.
I installed the radio and atas but couldnt seem to get the atas to
perform any low swr, the atas was fixed the the door side mount that
my older aerial was but after checking it with a fluke meter i found
that there was not a earth path from the mount to the suv body.
i solved this by fitted a seperate earth lead directly to the door
pillar and mount, then i tried the atas again and what a
difference,tuned in seconds even on the warc bands.

I managed to contact stations in zs,a,k,n and ve and most with good
reports back to me owe and my location is GD so i have to say that for
my first screwdriver type antenna it works well, the band i was using
was 20m and 17m.
After a bit of playing Dx i tried 6m and managed to open a repeater 50
miles away and recieved good reports back.

The Ft-857D seems to work well as a mobile station.
I would like to here from anyone who as also used this combination and
if they have moved away from the atas infavour of other types of
screwdriver antennas.

http://www.gd7jwr.com