Bill Turner wrote:
So how about this: I have a '95 Thunderbird
which I dearly love and don't want to cut holes in. I've been think of
going to a welding shop and having a metal piece made which I could
bolt to the frame in the back and which would stick out about six
inches or so behind the rear bumper, and installing a ball mount on it.
This will keep the lower part of the antenna about a foot away from the
body and allow a nice, long whip overall. The loading coil would be in
the center, homebrew of course. :-)

The only way to improve on that on 75m would be to mount
a piece of sheet metal on fiberglass poles connected at
the ends of both bumpers. The piece of horizontal sheet
metal, located 13.5 feet from the ground, would have the
same footprint as the T-bird and would be used as the top
hat. You do want optimum performance don't you? :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Cecil Moore wrote:

The only way to improve on that on 75m would be to mount
a piece of sheet metal on fiberglass poles connected at
the ends of both bumpers. The piece of horizontal sheet
metal, located 13.5 feet from the ground, would have the
same footprint as the T-bird and would be used as the top
hat. You do want optimum performance don't you? :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~

I think my T-Bird might actually fly. :-)

73, Bill W6WRT

Cecil, W5DXP wrote:
"The only way to improve on that on 75m would be to mount a piece of
sheet metal on fiberglas poles connected at ythe ends of both bumpers."

Kraus gives some support to that idea. Cecil has the 3rd edition of
"Antennas" In that edition, there is a "Disc antenna" on page 720 with
some similarity to cecil`s suggestion.

The "flush-disk" antenna, (d) in Figure 21-11 is said to be comparable
to a 1/4-wave vertical in performance, but has no projection. It could
be covered with a dielectric sheet, make no noise in the wind, and break
out no fluorescent tubes in parking garages. But, at 75m, the 0.3 lambda
dia. depression to contain it would measure 22.5 meters. That woud
require a vehicle that was very large indeed. At VHF and UHF it could be
very practical.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI