Wilson 5' Silverload antenna - can't get good SWR

[BostonWrangler]

Well, this is on my daily driver, not my Jeep. I made a bumper bracket for the Mazda smile.gif and currently have a 102" whip on there. It works great, has really low SWR with no tuning, but it's too damn tall.

I bought a 5' Wilson Silverload antenna. My SWR was over 3 when I installed it. I pushed the tip in, pulled the top out, removed the tip, hooked up the extra grouding wire... still crappy SWR. The grounding wire dropped the SWR to the 2.x range, but it's still too high.

Any ideas?

[Scrambler82]

:cool:

My thinking is that the Wilson is not a true wave lenght or portion of one and it is more senitive to the existing ground plane availbe to it, i.e. the vehicle body.

Double check the ground wires and check to make sure you have a ground at the antenna mount (mount to frame).

A Fiberglass antenna require that the top of the antenna be as high over the vehicle ground plane as possible. I'm think'n the top isn't very far over the top of the vehicle.

Believe it or not there isn't a lot you can do except move the antenna.

Last minute thought: Re-Check the SWR and your method you used to set the SWR. If the meter isn't "set" before the antenna is adjusted or a reading is taken then the SWR will be off.

Luck,

[BostonWrangler]

Thanks for the reply.

I calibrated the SWR meter before checking the SWR. The mount is bolted to the frame under the bumper, and the 102" whip has really low SWR, so I know it is grounded properly.

I may get a magnetic mount that will accept the 3/8" thread and put the fiberglass antenna in that, but if I put it on the roof, I won't be helping the height issue that I was hoping to alleviate with the shorter antenna. I could magmount it to the trunk I suppose.

Thanks again.

[b1pig]

You might consider a trunk lip mount if you don't want to go with a mag-mount. Maybe check the HAM radio stores/catalogs. www.aesham.com (http://www.aesham.com) , or www.hamradio.com (http://www.hamradio.com) . They carry a selection of antenna mounts that you can probably use. Even antenna elements. 10 meter is a HAM band, and 11 Meter is the CB band. smile.gif