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Craig, I think there is some good information here. Thanks for taking the time to put it out here for us. I do not claim to be an expert but I do question the negative gain on a 1/4 wave. Specifically that half the wire in the air necessarily means 3db loss. Where does the power go? If it...

5 days for me. 6 for my wife's. Never had to send anything in.

You know we neeeed pictures right?

Assuming it is a HAM antenna tuned for the 2m band 144-148MHz, the answer is yes but not very well. It will probably "hear" better than the handheld inside the vehicle would but it may not get out any better. Also, running that far out of tune has at least some potential to damage the radio...

With CB 4-pin I have never run across one that didn't have the same pin-out. With Ham it is a whole nother deal.

How did you bend the hoops so nice? Did you make a jig of some kind or do you just have mad skilz with a conduit bender?

Seems like you could make a spot on the center hoop for the plastic brackets to live such that the supports would be horizontal in the same location as the boards but you would still be able to pull them apart and lay the whole mess flat for storage... Best of both!

Well, first off, I will say, I'm just a ham not an ee, so take this for what it is. Think of it this way. It is called a ground plane. Like a stick poking up out of a pond you get a reflection that is the opposing image of the stick. The lower the frequency the bigger the plane needs to be to...

For 2m the basket by it's self should be plenty of ground plane. For CB you will need more "area" than the rack and tying it to the rest of the vehicle will give that to you. The more places you tie in the better but the law of diminishing returns applies. One at each corner should do. On the...

Yes. That's a good point. Where do we stand with this thread. What can we do for you WMDunkin? It seems the consensus view is that the radio in your original post would not be a good choice for any kind of Expo type use. If simple vehicle to vehicle comms within a group is what you are after, CB...

I don't understand this comment idahoan. I'm not a wireless systems engineer but I sure do talk hundreds and even thousands of miles on a regular with frequencies as high as ~50mHz not to even mention vhf/uhf stuff that is linked in a variety of ways to extend its effective range to cover most...

Bummer about that cover. I would like to see how that deck stuff holds up to a year our two outside. Cool idea though.

I like the idea but not the implementation. Maybe with a 4 bar linkage to keep it all right side up. I dont think I would like having it "dumped over" like that... At what point then would it be simpler, cheaper and lighter to just make a portable chuck box? Just my thoughts...

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. These are just my thoughts. If you are new to HAM or to the repeaters in your area. I would program no more than 20 or so and maybe as few as a handful. Start with the ones right around you or in areas you travel. Repeaterbook.com is great for this or...

I have had great experience with www.roadpost.com Saved my bacon in Mexico once.

So I looked up the manual for it. Looks like a cool rig. I see where it has the calibration feature and it says you want between 1.5 and 2. I am not sure what they are doing with the calibration but I would be looking to bring your SWR down anyway. I would consider 1.5 and absolute MAX. There is...

The HT sounds like an easy fix. I would think you could find a local ham to take care of that for you. The 7800 is a bit harder to call, but given that it worked when taken out of service there is a good change it is a simple problem as well. I'm a long way off but I would be happy to help if...

Swamp, Now you have me very curios. What is the model of radio you have? Does it have some kind of tuner built in? I can't imagine the radio can actually change the SWR because SWR is a property of the antenna system including the coax. It is possible for a radio to “put up with” a...

1.7 to 1 SWR is not generally considered a good match. Your radio will not be happy with that. You want to get it down to 1.2 -1.3 max. I don't see a problem with your setup overall so I think as others have said you should look a the electrical resistance between the outer braid of your coax...

Dude! That sucks. So sorry. I hate thieves too.