Hey Guys,
I need to come up with a good mounting method for my CB Antenna.
I have a full fiberglass cap, so anywhere on the bed is out.

I currently have it clamped to my towing mirror, but am struggling with grounding it.
The oval shape of the 2004 towing mirrors isnt great for clamping to either. Nothing I have found seems to fit them very well.
All the mirror clamps seem to be made for much smaller tubing.

I only use my CB when running on the highway to listen to the truckers for smokey reports, talking to guys I am towing with (close range),,, and I guess in an emergency if necessary.
I dont need super long range, just a good clean functional mount.

Anyone have any pics of your mounting solutions on Super Dutys?
I should add I dont want to drill the roof, cant place anywhere on the bed due to fiberglass cap.

Thanks in advance
jimmy

 

I just drilled my roof, it was traumatic but I'm very pleased with it after getting over the initial shock that yes, I was drilling a hole in a perfectly good roof. I went in through the cargo light cavity, turned out very slick.

Now I was drilling an NMO mount for a 1/4 wave 2M ham whip, all 19" of it, so the cb NMO antenna options will surely be mechanically/physically more substantial.

You can find examples of front bumper mounts, front hood mounts etc, all of which are poor compromises of an already tough situation of mounting an antenna on a vehicle. A high quality ball mount on a body panel supposedly yields good results, but it involves drills again.

Mag mounts will eventually mark the paint and can become missiles. But if your not trying to work the world, just the convoy or line of sight, you may be in decent shape as long as you can keep ignition noise out.

-Chris

 

I ran a magnet mount antenna for a number of years. As long as I didn't whap it on a tree limb or something, it stayed put on the roof. Actually for the short distance you are talking about, you could place it on the front fender. I used the K40 magnet mount....

 

+ 1 on the K40 mag mount. I have it on the roof, I put a small notch in the 3rd. brake light and ran the coax through the headliner down to the cb. I can get out pretty far, but I have a good radio as well.

The nice thing about the K40 is when you dont use the cb it comes with a cap and the whip comes off. I will try to snap a pic. for you this evening before the sun goes down.

Sarge

 

You can montu it on the frame running parallel, underneath the cab.

 

You have plenty of options, some of which don't yield very good performance. The best option as others have said is poking a hole in the roof. If done right, it will not rust, will not leak, and will not take away from any value of the vehicle. If not sure about it, you can have it installed professionally for under $100.

In addition to what's been suggested above, another option is an angle bracket on the front fender. The holes for it are not visible when the hood is closed, the screws go into the fender under the hood. This is not the best though, as the cab will interfere with the signal, just as it does with an antenna mounted on the mirror. I have a UHF antenna on my fender, and it's been there for 5 years with no rust issues, etc. Gotta make sure you silicone it up good.

The rear bumper corner is another option that is pretty common. Again, the body of the truck can interfere with the signal though.

When I had a fiberglass cap on my old chevy, I cut about a 3" round hole in the middle of the topper, and secured a 4" square piece of stainless steel above it. Drilled a hole in the stainless and installed an nmo mount. Also had to ground the stainless plate to the bed. It worked pretty good. Of course, I only used this option as I already had a couple antennas installed on the cab roof.

 

Hey Guys,
I have tried the mag mounts (2 brands, cant remember which ones),,, both seemed to come off at 75 MPH, I have two dents in the side of my truck from them, so I am very wary about mag mounts now.

I "really" dont want to drill my roof, even though I know its the best way to do it.

No one has successfully found a mirror mount that works with a Ford towing mirror?

I have been thinking of a front cowl mount on drivers side as done by few guys on FTE, very cleanly (again drilling on the truck though).

I also found a nice rear bumper mounted option in the archives, He drilled through the rear bumper on the drivers side and it looked pretty clean.

I am considering those options as well, but I'd love to come up with something that clamps to a mirror if I can.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.
Cheers
jimmy p.

Looked factory

 

I wouldn't. You would get very little range with it, as you would be running a horizontally polarized antenna while everyone else it running vertically polarized, not to mention the bodywork of the truck and frame blocking the signal in most directions. Not that it wouldn't work, but not very well.

 

I took a standard mirror mount and cut it down so it was just wider than the coax connector. It would then fit on the inside arm where the outer arm DIDN'T overlap. I then ran a ground wire under the hood. It works pretty well.

 

There are some posts around detailing this type of install. I don't need the big-rig distance and find this works great for my needs.

 

right, an example of just because you can doesn't mean you should.

now you could put an antenna inside the fiberglass shell (that would fit) and the shell wouldn't impact it. A very short loaded vertical mag mounted in the bed shorter than the ceiling of the shell for instance. You would have the trailer between you and those behind you, and the walls of the bed, but it would work better than lashed in parallel to the frame. Your non-homebrew options for such a short vertical may be limited but I admit I've never shopped for a CB whip.

 

Although I have shopped for mounts, not antennas, and I just remembered

http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/r/breedlove1/page16.html

is a stake pocket mount he claims will set under a camper shell and poke out to mount it, depending on how your stake pocket is constructed. I did find my rear pockets looked different than my front pockets internally. I'm not sure I've seen a stake pocket mount that was offset like that before. He says he will make custom mounts too, I have exchanged emails with him, easy to communicate with.

Breedlove has very nice mounts the guys makes himself, I don't own any though but its impressive stuff. I wish I did but just have the 2M in the truck at this point.

Also http://http://www.k0bg.com/antmount.html and the rest of his site can take up a lot of your free time reading about mobile installations of all kinds, ham or cb the physics are the same.

 

Hey that's nice. You can find people that replace the factory radio antenna with a vhf/uhf antenna, but that's even better.

 

A mag mount on the roof is the next best thing to drilling a hole in the roof.

Dead center of the plane of the roof will give you the best overall ground plane.

 

Go do some reading about it and I think you will find its really about the last best choice.

It all depends on how picky you are about how well things work, any antenna on a vehicle at HF is a compromise and its very easy to get into the single digit % efficiencies striving for compact size and convenience.

I admit, this is for a cb mount for local comms, so extreme measures are not necessary. If he felt a mag mount was acceptable it would work for sure.

I looked at my '01 F350 towing mirrors and I don't see anything that looks good mount wise. Might need to get some big chrome ones from a big rig to swap and mount to.