Best place to mount a Ham & CB antenna on 4-door Wrangler

[lysol]

I'll be installing a metal roof rack one of these days. But where is the best place to mount both a CB and Ham antenna for best performance? I really don't want to mount one or both between the tire carrier and the rear door as it seems that most people have poor performance there. I have thought about mounting the Ham antenna on a hood mount that sticks out the side of the hood, but if I ever get limb risers, this might interfere. I don't want to mount it on the rear bumper as well for the same reasons in mounting it between the tire carrier and the rear door. That pretty much leaves the roof rack.

Would it be in poor practice to mount them on top of the roof rack? This would also put it in the way of branches and other junk. The hood might be my best bet in the end. Just not sure.

 

[Per]

I think it is the best place. It is important to make a solid electrical ground conection from the roof rack thru the body to the frame for best performance.

 

[IKE2013]

Typically center of the vehicle, so over your b pillar/ sound bar area. I have mine on the rear tire carrier. It works just fine. I run a 3 ft, and have a 5 foot antenna for more distance. No issues. My buddy has a ham on an adjustable height motor mount for ham on the rear bumper of his Ranger. He talks to people overseas. I am no expert on either, I just know they work fine. My cb setup picks up for miles.

 

[Kiddmen57]

I have a 4' FireFly antenna on a teraflex/rugged ridge style mount (the one that attaches to two of the spare tire carrier bolts). The top of the antenna is 18-20" above the roof. I added 1" braided strap from the carrier to the tailgate and from the tailgate to the body. I also use a QD fitting. Get about 1.5:1 on 1/40 and 1.0:1 on 20.
When I added my AEV tire carrier I re-located the antenna to the top of the mast. this gave me crap SWR across the board. Called FireStik as I had everything bonded well. Since the Jeep has a fiberglass roof, it essentially went through that and was looking at the floor pan as the ground plane. Long story short my antenna was too high! Bought a 2' antenna and SWR was just fine. I ended up shearing off that short stubby antenna out on the trail. I went back to a 4' on the mount I mentioned earlier. SWR is good and the antenna flexes out of the way. The FireFly antenna according to FireStik are less sensitive to ground plane which is a good benefit on the Wrangler.

Recently I added a small cheap mag mount HAM antenna to use with my H/T when in the Jeep. that is mounted such that the antenna comes up between the rear of the hood and the cowl on the drivers side. I get pretty decent transmission distances with this even on 5w H/T. I plan on mounting an NMO antenna in the same location when I can upgrade to a 50W mobile rig.

If you don't plan on taking off the roof ever, you can line the inside with copper sheet and bond it to the body with braided strap. Then its as if you have a solid roof and i'd mount the CB at the rear and the HAM at the front, both centered. You can install a headliner kit to cover the copper sheeting.

 

[4x4junkie]

A good-sized roof rack is by far your best option for mounting antennas (the higher up the better-- no such thing as "too high" as long as your antenna is mounted directly to an object having sufficient mass to act as a ground plane). Just be sure to DC-ground the rack since you said the roof itself is fiberglass.

Put your antenna mounts on the inside of the side of the roof rack (or at the front or rear-center) so that the mount is protected and use a spring on the antennas so they can deflect out of the way should a branch come sweeping over them.

 

[ScoutII]

I've lost 2 antennas now The brush, or rough terrain can make them come loose and fall out.

I'm now running this one. Diamond Antenna NR72BNMO Dualband Mobile Antenna. It's 13" tall and works awesome for a base loaded antenna. I've using it for a few years now and would recommend this to anyone.
Plus is does not attract attention



As for location, on top of the vehicle is best. Get a good NMO mount http://www.antennaworld.com/commercial-ham-uhf.php
I've pick them up on Ebay too for like $10 You want something solid. sagemaiden on ebay makes some nice cables too. Her company is called MPD digital. I had her make me a nice LMR 240 cable which some think is over kill, but it was cheap and performance is better. makes it a no brainer.

As for the CB, just about anything will work. The Wilson base loaded are nice as you don't need a super strong mount like with a fire stick. Even with a spring they flop around a lot when offroad.

 

[lysol]

I'm thinking about using a Diamond k9000 motorized antenna mount. I would like to put them at the front of the roof rack just inside (behind) the front light. That would allow the antenna(s) to pivot down when going into a garage or low trees.

 

[ScoutII]

Just make sure you press the switch! Don't ask why lol

What about the HAM radio antenna? Motor mount there too? I use my HAM 10 times as much as the CB radio. I think because nobody checks there CB radio before hitting the trail so about 50% of the guys radios don't work.

 

[lysol]

I have used the mag. mount with the best results on the hood in front of the passenger seat for the CB radio. My radio has a built in SWR meter, and I move the antenna around with in a 6" area and can get as low as 1.2 to 1 reading. I also have a Gobi rack and built a 6" X 10" plate to the front light mounts. inside of the rack. I get about 2.5 to 1 on the on channel 40 and a 3.5 to 1 on channel 1.

For the 2 meter I have the same mount above the drivers side with a good match and a mag. mount antenna.

Is there any way possible to see pics of your rack and antenna(s) mounted?

 

[Prybry]

Are you running with a soft top? Move it inside!

If you are running a soft top on your jeep, you might consider what I do...
I use a mag mount and antenna just short enough to fit inside the jeep... Yes, inside!
I stick the mag mount and antenna to the top of the rear body tub, just inside the roll bar. It works great! I could roll the jeep over and still have a stright antenna to call for help...!

I think this would also work for a hard top jeep as long as the top is fiberglass... a metal top will certainly effect the range.
But I've done some testing and have not noticed a difference between mounting to the hood or mounting to the inside fender. Obviously mounting to the roof rack is best but pretty risky.
Now I also am running a 2 meter radio with 10 watts rather than a CB at only 5 watts... but try it out..
At first I had a long enough cable on my antenna intending to move it out on the hood when I needed more range... but I've never used it. It works fine inside!

Make sure your antenna can't touch anything grounded... like the roll bar.. if it's padded like most are now days, no problem.

 

[Per]

This is a roof rack mount on a Jeep. It is in swedish so you have to use Google translate to reda the thread.
http://27mhz.se/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7666&p=69544#p69544

 

[VegasUnderworld]

The cleanest antenna install I've seen on any Jeep had a folding mount secured to the top of the driver side A-pillar. In the folded position, it lay parallel to the top of the windshield, but only took seconds to raise and secure in the up position. Not sure what kind of performance he was getting, but I'm sure he was able to communicate with those in his trail group even in the down position.

 

[lysol]

I will get some tomorrow.

Any chance you still have those pictures? lol.

 

[kojackJKU]

I mounted my antenna on the rear tire mount, its a 24" wilson, on a long haul truck mirror mount I modified to fit. I have a ground strap to my tailgate, and the antenna just tips over my hard top. The hard top is invisible to the antenna anyways, same with satillite radio signals. Its protected back there and I get about 5-6KM range out of this which is fine by me. I may get a bit more not sure. I have yet to really test it. On the logging roads they have every KM marked for safety, So we are going to go in there and test the distance we receive signal.

 

[lysol]

Wranglers sure aren't setup for antennas... I mean the best bet would be to get a roof rack and mount the antennas in the middle of it... mounting antennas along the side of vehicles gives you a horrible radiation pattern. I'll probably have to compromise and just use a clip mount to mount my HAM antenna on the driver's side of the hood.