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Hood-mounted radio antenna

7K views 11 replies 6 participants last post by  Captainmal 
#1 ·
I'm a ham (K1VFR), I'm looking to retire soon (yeah me!), and I'm thinking of buying a 2 meter rig for my truck as a retirement gift to myself. My truck is a 2015 regular cab with a cap, and it's garage kept, so my options for an antenna are limited. I'm thinking of a hood-mounted antenna. I've seen the cool-tech model, and although it looks well made, I'm not a fan of the mounting location. I'm thinking of something more like pictured below, and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with these? I'd like something that I can mount, then someday remove with very little trace that it was ever there. Does this end up scratching the hood? How does it do on car washes with a short antenna attached?




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#2 ·
Car wash with rotating brushes ===>> , antenna good bye , need no-contact car wash .
I remember in the 60's , seeing cars go by with long antenna but in a rainbow round form ,
from front fender all the way to rear of rear fender .
maybe it could be hidden in the box cap ...can't find images of them ,
but modern stuff must be better .
 
#3 ·
Not what you asked...but the Cooltech turned out great. I wasn't a fan of cutting a small hole in the cowl trim either, but the Cooltech setup really did end up slick. I put a rubber plug in it when the radio is removed. No spring, and it doesn't move at 80mph, the antenna is lightweight and flexes enough


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#5 ·
I had one like the first picture on my 04 RAM, no issues at all, I'm not a fan of rotating brushes either, I use the pressure wash car washes. I'm just curious where you put the radio now, my old was mounted on the plate under the steering wheel, just enough room to not smash my knee. The newer ones seem to have less space. Maybe I could mount the radio in the bucket in the center console for road trips.
 
#6 ·
I honestly haven't even looked at the interior with mounting a radio in mind. There may not be room, but I'd like to mount in under the steering wheel as you said. Or, I may consider a removable face plate radio where I could mount the body of the radio anywhere, and the faceplate somewhere up on the dash.
 
#7 ·
I honestly haven't even looked at the interior with mounting a radio in mind. There may not be room, but I'd like to mount in under the steering wheel as you said. Or, I may consider a removable face plate radio where I could mount the body of the radio anywhere, and the faceplate somewhere up on the dash.
My whole radio comes out. Lol


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#10 ·
Nice work, but curiosity has me wondering. What's that little black box at the top rear of the radio and that little antenna "thingy" towards the top front of the radio?
It is a Uniden BearTracker 880. CB and scanner combination unit. Has GPS antenna (black box) and scanner antenna (ebay one I got instead of the suction-cup window wire antenna it came with). I mounted them to the unit itself so I only have to connect the power and coax. The scanner function uses a SD card preloaded with data from radioreference.com, a published and updated database of scanner channels per zip code/location. As you travel, it will update frequencies near to you based on GPS location. That is according to Uniden how it is supposed to work. Developed for trucking market where a driver may traverse a lot of zip codes, no channels to fool with. Just wish it also had a manual tune option so I could tune in to a few specific frequencies if I wanted to.

Just a cool unit and pretty well thought out. Was an engineering sample at a prior job that has now become a "long-term test unit" for me. Ebay bracket, OEM power outlet and cover, some misc cables and connectors to tie into the Cooltech antenna.

I need to make a writeup on this...

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