Phone antennae installation

Submitted: Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 08:56
ThreadID: 108495 Views:2017 Replies:6 FollowUps:9
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I understand that uhf radio aerials perform better if mounted on the roof rather than the bull bar.

Can anyone advise if this also applies to installing an aerial to improve mobile phone range,ie is it better on the roof also ?

thankyou for your replies.
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Reply By: olcoolone - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:14

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:14
Yes it is better on the roof but the differences in real life would be minimal.

Mounting the antennas on a 20 foot pole on your roof is better again but .....
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Reply By: Robin Miller - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:43

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:43
Yes it does Pepper but the installation has to be done properly.

By coincidence I have been trying to find out the best possible uhf antenna.

I actually have 3 mounted on car right now and can switch between them instantly.

The thing is that I have been unable to beat the simplest antenna of all , the short low cost 1/4 wave whip mounted in roof centre.
Even a gain antenna mounted in the same location is no better.
This occurs mainly because of the effective angle of radiation.
(gain antenna's often have gain - but if its not in the direction of the horizon then its meaningless gain)

Interesting stuff.
Robin Miller

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Follow Up By: pepper2 - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:36

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:36
Robin you are correct about correct installation..a mistake I made recently was bunching up excess aerial cable and stuffing it out of sight behind a facia panel , it was surprising how negatively this affects radio performance...I pulled it back out and reran the cable in straight lines no bunching and much improved result.
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:53

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:53
Robin, I'm sure you will appreciate this...........

Last year a group member destroyed his UHF antenna mounted on the rack behind the ute cab. I rigged a 1.5m length of hookup cable from the end of the coax stretched horizontally across the top of the rack.

His radio performance over several km was as good as any other in the group and better than a couple of other "proper" ones!

Whilst there are well established technical principles involved in antenna design, I'm sure you would agree that anything is worth a try....... you just never know.

Cheers
Allan

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Follow Up By: Robin Miller - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 15:05

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 15:05
Hi Guys

It can be tricky stuff all right , and there are other hidden factors like those with bullbars mounts often run coax thru the engine bay as its usually shorter but a not apparent effect takes place and that is ignition interference which makes the receiver less sensitive.

In practise with types of modulation and frequency in use this is not apparent to the user.

It certainly worth a go Allan and that was a good idea.

Its very hard to get real valid results for some of this stuff you have to be so careful.

One of my tests was indicating the gain antenna was working better , then I rotated the car 180 degrees !

Robin Miller

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Reply By: allein m - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:01

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:01
Some people may r ember fox hunts in the old days of the first CB radios

This is where one person hides some where in a set area and others using there radio signal strength find the first person

Ok i cheated by modifying my radio but when I became the fox i switched antenna to a magnetic base one and constantly moved it all over different locations in the car,

So on the roof people found that the strongest and few minute later I moved it onto the boot some lost the signal completely, after a while i switched back to main antenna

people did not know what I was doing but my point is the roof is the best because of ground plain lots of it ,

fun days
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Follow Up By: Robin Miller - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 14:58

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 14:58
Damm , so thats why you were so hard to catch !
Robin Miller

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Follow Up By: allein m - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 16:30

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 16:30
My mate was a licensed Ham radio operator and he did all the work on my CB I was able along with a few others to slide between channels

fun day s and no one every worked it out till today lol
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Follow Up By: Freshstart - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 16:39

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 16:39
A piece of cake to do. But I would never do that. Would I modify a CB ?????? Nah
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Follow Up By: allein m - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 17:46

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 17:46
In those days there were no mobile phone a lot more used them but we had some real idiots and we got sick of them so the group that i was involved with decided if we were to slide in between channels we could get rid of them

They new we were there but they could not talk to us

bit like the other day school holidays here in Broken Hill and we had some little kid in a car mum and dad went to the shops

he constantly asked for a radio check and he was told it was ok but couple of minutes later same thing

If I had found him I would had a few word with mum and dad re radio eticit

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Reply By: Freshstart - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:13

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:13
Still on phone antennas.

What about those antennas that look like sharks fins? The ones that are installed by the manufacturers. Would they do?

I would like to get one that has a low profile so that I don't have to drop it every time I go shopping or put the car in the garage. The phone has "blue tick" coverage and I would like to improve that coverage, not destroy it by getting a low gain "shark fin" etc one.

Any ideas? Would it be better to just get a "broom stick" on the bullbar and be done with it?
AnswerID: 535025

Follow Up By: Member - Peter H1 (NSW) - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 19:08

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 19:08
I've mounted mine on the rear of the 5'er on a turning thing off a boat. Which means I can fold the ariel down to miss the trees, I use it for my Computer as well.
I got it from Telco Antenna.

PeterH
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Follow Up By: Freshstart - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 19:17

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 19:17
Hi Peter. Not a boatie ehere. What on earth is a " 5'er on a turning thing off a boat"?

I would prefer not to have it foldable. The car is quite high and at 2.2M I would have to stop and do it at just about ever shop.

I was aondering if anyone had any experience with the stuff they pit on new cars.
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Reply By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:42

Thursday, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:42
Pepper, I fitted a "broomstick" mobile phone antenna on the roof rack. It certainly improved reception in fringe conditions when my phone was connected to it.
Only trouble was that the outer tubing was soon destroyed by overhanging branches, the Troopy being so tall and all.
I rebuilt it using orange heavy-duty conduit and so far, so good.
So although you may get better performance from a roof mount you may be better off with it on the bull-bar with some small reception loss.
Cheers
Allan

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Reply By: Gronk - Friday, Jun 27, 2014 at 00:31

Friday, Jun 27, 2014 at 00:31
I have a Lumia 920 phone on an inductive cradle ( car comms ) and at xmas time we were camped at a very marginal campsite ( just enough signal to send a text msg...if you held your tongue right !! )

Took the broomstick off and mounted it 10ft up a tree and plugged it back in the cradle......no difference at all in signal strength.....

Broomstick now resides in the garage...

The inductive cradle works well as a phone charger....pity it's no good for what I bought it for !!
AnswerID: 535064

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