I have a Perth Plus (Outbacker) and I think the antenna works wonderful.
However, I do know from experience that installation location seems to
be critical. I used to have it mounted on a ladder rack on an Astro van
with its ground wire attached directly to the roof with a small bolt and
nut. Worked GREAT! Now it's on my F-150 on a mount I made up that goes
into my receiver hitch. I ran a 1" wide ground strap from the truck
frame up to the top of the mount, where I attached the antennas ground
wire to. Now the tuning of the whip is way off from the marks and I can
only get it tuned on 75M through about 17M. Works great when tuned on
these bands, but someday I'll miss 15M-10M...

Scott
N0EDV


David G. Nagel wrote:
Shadow 998 wrote:

Hello All, I'm looking at installing my 706 G in the truck for HF use
and
am looking for suggestions as to which screwdriver antenna (or other?)
you
would recommend.

It will go on a small truck.

Thanks!

Russ
KG6TDX


Russ;

I had a High Sierra Pro installed on my Honda Element. It seemed to do a
good job until it was the target of an automobile bumper. The antenna
survived in fairly good condition. The tip of the whip was bent slightly
due to whipping around in the impact. The barrel of the lower unit was
slightly damaged but not broken. The plastic weather protection tube was
broken at the top where the cap is screwed into it. The only other
damage was to the mounting bracket. I used a tiltout mounting bracket on
a receiver hitch to hold everything on the car. The bottom of the hinge
bracket snapped off at the hitch mount.
I have repaired everything and the antenna seems to be working great. I
can't speak more highly about this antenna.
For range all I can report is making contacts from St. Louis to
Indianapolis. I was vertically polarized and the other station was NVIS.
The rig is an Icom 706MKIIG.
I also am using an Outbacker Perth Plus but I am not really satisfied
with it. It could be the fault of the installation, I really don't know.


Dave Nagel WD9BDZ

Scott wrote:
Now it's on my F-150 on a mount I made up that goes
into my receiver hitch. I ran a 1" wide ground strap from the truck
frame up to the top of the mount, where I attached the antennas ground
wire to. Now the tuning of the whip is way off from the marks and I can
only get it tuned on 75M through about 17M. Works great when tuned on
these bands, but someday I'll miss 15M-10M...

I had the same problem with a configuration like that. The ground
strap is a radiating part of the antenna and is ground at one end
and not ground at the feedpoint. On the higher frequencies, it is
an appreciable percentage of a wavelength so the antenna is too
long. In addition, the feedpoint is located away from the ground
point something like a gamma match. Here's what it looks like:

radiating
GND---gnd strap---FP---------antenna-------------

The solution is to ground the system at the FP feedpoint. For me,
that was at the top of my tail gate.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp


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Scott;

Thanks for the remarks about your installation. I have not given up hope
for my Plus just yet. I think our problem with the receiver hitch
installation is the mass of metal on the back of the vehicles. My
hatchback and your tailgate. The manual does state that we should keep
the antenna as far from large surfaces of metal parallel to the antenna.
I am going to try using a mast to elevate the antennas above the top of
the van and see what happens.


Dave WD9BDZ



Scott wrote:

I have a Perth Plus (Outbacker) and I think the antenna works wonderful.
However, I do know from experience that installation location seems to
be critical. I used to have it mounted on a ladder rack on an Astro van
with its ground wire attached directly to the roof with a small bolt and
nut. Worked GREAT! Now it's on my F-150 on a mount I made up that goes
into my receiver hitch. I ran a 1" wide ground strap from the truck
frame up to the top of the mount, where I attached the antennas ground
wire to. Now the tuning of the whip is way off from the marks and I can
only get it tuned on 75M through about 17M. Works great when tuned on
these bands, but someday I'll miss 15M-10M...

Scott
N0EDV


David G. Nagel wrote:

Shadow 998 wrote:

Hello All, I'm looking at installing my 706 G in the truck for HF
use and
am looking for suggestions as to which screwdriver antenna (or
other?) you
would recommend.

It will go on a small truck.

Thanks!

Russ
KG6TDX


Russ;

I had a High Sierra Pro installed on my Honda Element. It seemed to do
a good job until it was the target of an automobile bumper. The
antenna survived in fairly good condition. The tip of the whip was
bent slightly due to whipping around in the impact. The barrel of the
lower unit was slightly damaged but not broken. The plastic weather
protection tube was broken at the top where the cap is screwed into
it. The only other damage was to the mounting bracket. I used a
tiltout mounting bracket on a receiver hitch to hold everything on the
car. The bottom of the hinge bracket snapped off at the hitch mount.
I have repaired everything and the antenna seems to be working great.
I can't speak more highly about this antenna.
For range all I can report is making contacts from St. Louis to
Indianapolis. I was vertically polarized and the other station was NVIS.
The rig is an Icom 706MKIIG.
I also am using an Outbacker Perth Plus but I am not really satisfied
with it. It could be the fault of the installation, I really don't know.


Dave Nagel WD9BDZ

Well thats the problem, you have it on a ford. I think you need to buy
another astro Van :) Actually I have that same kind of arrangement on my
Astro using the trailer drawbar with a Iron horse 40m stick. grounded to
chassis. and it works great!
JD VE3DIX

"Scott" wrote in message
...
I have a Perth Plus (Outbacker) and I think the antenna works wonderful.
However, I do know from experience that installation location seems to
be critical. I used to have it mounted on a ladder rack on an Astro van
with its ground wire attached directly to the roof with a small bolt and
nut. Worked GREAT! Now it's on my F-150 on a mount I made up that goes
into my receiver hitch. I ran a 1" wide ground strap from the truck
frame up to the top of the mount, where I attached the antennas ground
wire to. Now the tuning of the whip is way off from the marks and I can
only get it tuned on 75M through about 17M. Works great when tuned on
these bands, but someday I'll miss 15M-10M...

Scott
N0EDV


David G. Nagel wrote:
Shadow 998 wrote:

Hello All, I'm looking at installing my 706 G in the truck for HF use
and
am looking for suggestions as to which screwdriver antenna (or other?)
you
would recommend.

It will go on a small truck.

Thanks!

Russ
KG6TDX


Russ;

I had a High Sierra Pro installed on my Honda Element. It seemed to do a
good job until it was the target of an automobile bumper. The antenna
survived in fairly good condition. The tip of the whip was bent slightly
due to whipping around in the impact. The barrel of the lower unit was
slightly damaged but not broken. The plastic weather protection tube was
broken at the top where the cap is screwed into it. The only other
damage was to the mounting bracket. I used a tiltout mounting bracket on
a receiver hitch to hold everything on the car. The bottom of the hinge
bracket snapped off at the hitch mount.
I have repaired everything and the antenna seems to be working great. I
can't speak more highly about this antenna.
For range all I can report is making contacts from St. Louis to
Indianapolis. I was vertically polarized and the other station was NVIS.
The rig is an Icom 706MKIIG.
I also am using an Outbacker Perth Plus but I am not really satisfied
with it. It could be the fault of the installation, I really don't know.


Dave Nagel WD9BDZ