<span class="highlight">Antenna</span> Brocken on my GME TX 3100

Hi Steve,
Mount your aerial on the drivers side gutter so it "shoots " straight down the road, 3DB aerials are good for close hilly work,9DB for distance and the 6DB is the best of both, people mount BIG aerials on their bullbars to get over the top of the roof line, personally I can't stand looking at a wobbly aerial for 1000s of klms(spoils the view) and will hit every low branch, on that point the gutter mount has a tilt function so you just reach out the window and lay it flat when needed . cheers

Having the aerial high and clear is a guaranteed benifit......I don't know if it would work out in reality but mounting on the drivers side is fair logic.

This whole gain for terain thing...lower gain aerials for hilly terian simply does not stack up.

In almsot all cases the higher gain aerial will always win.


as for tilting mounts..oh hell yeh.....you can make your own out of two angle brackets, a nut & bolt and some washers.

mine stands upright at 120Kmh hour after hour.....but will knock straight down if it hits something.

cheers

The only advantage I could see mounting it on the drivers side is to stop damage being caused by overhead branches on the foot path.

Mounting left or right is such a variable and the difference made would be so low you would see no difference in performance.

As for antenna gain people on forums put to much emphasis in antenna dB gain....... to the average user it makes bugger all difference, terrain changes so quick you would be pulling over and changing antennas every few minutes.

6dB is a good all round antenna but it comes down to ease of use, convenience the big one..... LOOKS.lol

It seems dB gain is always a BIG talking point on forums and why I don't know, it's very funny...... I am sure there is more to life, travelling and 4x4ing then stressing on dB gain ratings...... can have the cheapest tyres, driving lights, suspension, dual battery system and UHF radio BUT that dB gain has to be the best and according to some it's the most critical device to get right on a 4x4..... (tongue in check)

The way people talk about gain it's like the wrong antenna or location can be the difference of someone hearing you full stop...... choose the wrong location or gain and your history.

What they said!

A 6db antenna with knock down on the roof kills anything on the bonnet.

I have the GME 6/9db stainless steel antenna mounted on my roof with a simple bracket that allows it to fold back if I hit something.

As a recent comparison. I just got back from the Simpson, everyone except me had about 6db antennas mounted on their bullbar. I was generally 3rd vehicle in the convoy. I had conversations with vehicles coming the other way 10 mins before the others in our party could even hear the other vehicle, even though the lead vehicle in our group was generally 1 or 2km ahead of me most of the time. They were getting about a 4km range verses about 10 or more for my UHF.

Height is might - especially since most cars now have tinting which is generally metallic and a great radio wave block.

Get a ground independent antenna to make installation easier.

As to that 'low gain for hills' gumpff. Nothing will be reliable over the next mountain range, and for car to car convoy contact you are usually within a km or so so anything will work. Also If I am climbing a hill, the lobes on my higher gain antenna will point up and down the track most of the time - not that they are as pronounced as in the marketing diagrams. I guess I would suffer if I wanted to contact any UFO directly overhead though.

Cool one mate..It occurs to me that the reason for so much discussion about gain and the prevalance of expensive antennas IS.

People fail to grasp that UHF CB's main limitation is, that it is "line of sight" and is a format that is specifically and intentionally range limited.

On top of that so many people have bad experiences with UHF CB because they don't pay attention to the simple basics.

An aerial high and clear.....any aerial high and clear is the single biggest advangae you can have on a line of sight system.....but people persist in putting their antennas in obstructed positions...then don't grasp that all that good gain is doing nothing for them.

Likewise another simple problem is that people don't speak clearly and directly..and thus other have difficulty hearing them.

the converse is that many people are listening thru very small speakers or those burried where they can not hear the direct sound.

SO failing in the simple basics...they look to the complicated and expensive to improve their results.....AND there are plenty of salesmen prepared to spin them a line and take their money.



Regardless what radio band I am working on, regardless of the power involved..I always seem to get more range, hear more and get read more clearly that most other people because I pay attention to the simple basics.

at the risk or harping, a hell of a lot of that that comes back to an aerial high and clear...a modest amount of gain never goes astray.

But you know that....unfortunately its hard to convince some people.

as for the aerial on the drivers side...yeh...in most cases it would be hard to prove any advantage...BUT..maybe ..if towing a large caravan....or closely following or being closely followed by a large vehicle like a buss or pantechnican van...having the aerial on the drivers side... MAY...provide some advantege of getting arround an obstruction.

cheers

Yes Bantam I agree with your comments and the ones we see where people complain are those exact customers who don't know how to use the radio (speaking 3 foot from the microphone or into the back of it) or have a 27Mhz antenna on a 5/16 base, the wrong antenna full stop, the wrong base, brackets loose held on with to smaller screws in to thinner metal and cut down antennas because they could not get under their roller door......

When we see some of these things we question the owner and it always seems to be "my mate did it" or "yeah it broke LAST WEEK and I haven't got around to get around to fix that".

Oh and not forgetting people who have their radios mounted 28 foot from where they are going to use them and trying to get the curly cord to reach...... curly cords are not meant to be stretch fully and then some.

The right vs left is an interesting theory...... the only problem is the variables, on the right it may be better as you have said but them if the person your talking to is of the the left and behind you there would be disadvantaged...... to many variables.

Yes height is king.

The bullbar is possibly one of the worst places to mount an aerial for a variety of reasons.

cheers

ok ok have a look at this site then
http://www.zcg.com.au/antenna-gain-explained.html

yeh I've seen those exagerated comparison diagrames...go and look at real aerail plots...they mostly do not confirm those assertions...ceratnly none to the extent illustrated.

Not on a general case of gain V radiation pattern and certainly not is specific cases.

In the case of high gain aerials..that actial radiotion pattern varies depenging on the arrangement within that aerial.

some high gain aerials to exhibit narrwing of the radiation pattern..others do not.

In the case of the generic 6.5dbi ( 4.5 db dipole) elivated feed antenna...that so many companies make .....if you can find someone who publishes a radiation plot you will find it will have better radiation than a unity gain monopole or almost every other lower gain aerial available by far in every direction but straight up.

In fact the extent of any narrowing of the radiation pattern is advantageous in every situation.

The only time when the narrowig of the radiation patter gets anywhere near what tends to be illustrated is in the very high gain aerials like 9 to 12 db gain over a dipole...and mostly they are far to big to be carried as a mobile antenna.

Serioulsy this whole gain for terian is a crock.....some of the aerial compaines push the idea..because they would rather sell you two antennas than one..and one of those will tend to be expensive.

cheers