external antennas

Ryno,you saved me asking the question.

Looking at doing exactly the same thing with a Samsung HKT300 car kit.
Very interested to see what comes out of this thread.

a broomstick antenna on the bullbar works fantastic, I do believe they are ground independent so it doesn't matter where you mount them

Have a broomstick on my bullbar and a samsung A412.....we have just returned from the Kimberley's and used it on the reurn journey south to home (SW WA)

My experience is that it varied a bit with the terrain but what we did was to keep checking the signal when not connected and when it dropped out we then connected the broomstick to compare the difference

on average it gave us signals back to about 2 bars once the hand held dropped out and then in time dropped out as well of course as we got some distance out of the towns....i was quite happy with the result

at least it gives us the ability to camp maybe up to 60 k's out of town and get a signal...seems to be terrain dependant of course

Why mount the antenna on the bullbar???
It would need to be higher than the roof to give you adequate reception. This may be (sort of) OK for a UHF broomstick antenna, although I think they look awful and just block the view in front.

You will get as good, or better, reception with the aerial mounted on the roof gutter, or even the rear/side of the front mudguard.

I have both a UHF antenna (driver's side) and a GSM/NextG antenna (passenger side) mounted on the roof gutter .
In town, both antennas are flexible stubbies which still give great reception. They are swapped over for ones of about 800mm for country driving to give the best possible range.

I have compared the gutter mounted antenna with a friend who has a gynormous "wankerpole" antenna as thick as a flagpole and almost as long and he gets no better reception than my (almost) unobtrusive antenna.

It gets down to a good quality (not expensive) antenna and location, location, location.

The bullbar is where I mount the sand flag.

Bill.

thanks will defiently get one now.