Fooling around with antennas, and surprising results.

[Mentor3006]

I know, I know my mounting situation is far less than ideal, but it is what it is... I am using a fender channel mount in a van because I have a fiberglass roof that raises and lowers like a built on roof top tent. Antenna mounting there would suck, and I have parking garage concerns to deal with.

I figured I would go with a 3' Firestik II, and the first one I tried installing SWR could NOT go in no matter what I tried, looking down the bore of the antenna with the screw all the way out, and you can see what looks like a broken wire, so back to Amazon it went, in its place another 3' Firestik II, which worked as well as a fender mounted Firestik II can be expected to work.

Just for giggles, I decided to toss on one of my old 102s I had sitting in my shed, checked SWRs and smack on, but folks that could normally hear me had no idea I was talking... Now I wasn't unique in that, conditions tonight were horrid,

On the plus side the 102 is flexible enough, I can rain gutter clip the antenna to clear my parking garage ceiling so that's good.

I was simply NOT expecting to get WORSE performance out of a 102 than a Firestik. But there were a lot of folks tonight that couldn't hear each other that typically can, I guess we try again tomorrow night.

[Mentor3006]

And more fooling around with antennas. I had a spare 102 in the garage, you know the drill by now maybe, Realistic SS 102 on a Hustler allegedly SS barrel spring with rusty caps. Yay Hustler...

Anyway my SWR on the other 102 was great, but not freakishly amazingly awesome. 1.1 on channel 1, 1.2 on channel 20 and between 1.3 and 1.4 on channel 40, so the antenna was just smidge long. What do do?

I remember the old Antenna I had on my CJ7 years ago I had somehow managed to get the soldered on ball tip to pop off, probably flailing about off road, and the antenna was maybe 1/16" to 3/32" shorter than the other one, so I swapped them around and took SWR.

President Auto SWR on the radio says 1.0 across the board.

My RadioShack meter says 1.0 on 1 and 40, and just below 1.1 on 20.

My friends MFJ meter gives me the same result.

So 3 different meters, all the same freakishly low SWR result.

I think I am done futzing with the antenna now...

[443 Arizona]

whips are the ultimate go-to ,never-fail, if anything it probably got directional on you,

[Mentor3006]

It did, but not the way I expected. Since it is mounted drivers front, I expected the direction pattern to be biased toward passenger rear, but no, it is STRONGLY in favor of drivers front... Kind of backwards and I honestly don't understand why...