Can I get help on a very good antenna for the Wrangler? With no ground plane other than the hood, I suspect antenna type choice is the key.
I, too, had put a lot of thought into this, and for the same reason. I see a lot of guys who mount a 1/4 wave (for 2m frequencies; ~ 19" tall) antenna on a bracket poking out from their hood. Here is a random Googled example picture:
I don't like this setup for three main reasons (two of which are related to each other):
#1: A 1/4 wave antenna is supposed to need a ground plane under it.
#2: An antenna mounted in this manner has no ground plane under it.
#3: all else being equal, a larger antenna outperforms a shorter one (ie, 1/2 wave compared to 1/4 wave).
For these three reasons, I decided to go with one of the ~3ft 1/2 wave (again, on 2m) antennas instead. After much research including reading personal reviews by hundreds of ham operators around the country, I decided the Larsen NMO2/70B sounded like a good bet. Sure, at $69 it cost more than some of the lesser name brand antennas I saw on Amazon... but quality usually tends to cost a bit more.
In the photo in my last post above, you see where I mounted it on my TJ. Even though it is only a comparative sliver of flat metal, I decided I'd rather put the antenna there instead of on a bracket that hangs in empty space. Then I ran the coax cable into the engine bay, to and through the firewall, and I soldered on a connector. Easy.
Performance has been, in a word,
excellent. Earlier this year at EJS when I was running Elephant Hill, our group split into two smaller subgroups. Most of the ham operators ended up in the other subgroup; only one was with me... until he had to drop out at mid-day to assist with a broken vehicle, leaving me as the sole ham in my subgroup. Due to the terrain and the distance between us, CBs were useless for communicating with the other group. However, nearly all day long I was staying in touch with the other group via my ham radio. My ham friend who had to drop out of our group is an electrician by trade, and (as you'd expect) he prides himself on proper electrical installations. So you'll understand why I was thrilled when he told me (before he dropped out, ie while we were driving along nose-to-tail) that I was having entire conversations with people he couldn't even hear on his radio! Hours later after the run was over and we were driving back to town, I was at the side of the road with one other ham who was trying unsuccessfully to reach his family members (also hams). He kept calling out to them but got no answer. I offered to try my radio, but he said not to bother since it was obviously worthless. I tried anyway. To his surprise, I managed to make contact with his family and, though steamy, we could communicate all the necessary information about his problem. These experiences made me feel even better about my particular setup and hardware choices.
If you're curious, my ham friend who had to drop out of the run has an LJ. His ham antenna is a 1/4 wave, mounted on a bracket poking out of the hood like I pictured above. Hmm. I'm sure somebody with a 1/4 wave antenna who is reading along at home is about to explode on me: "yeah, well, there are dozens of other factors that influence performance so stop blaming the antenna!" You're right--there
are other factors.
But here is more interesting information. My daily driver econocar also has a Yaesu FT-7900R in it. For various reasons, when I bought that radio (it was my first mobile ham radio purchase, BTW) I chose a smaller ~19" dual band Tram 1181 antenna. It was definitely cheap; I only paid about $19 for it at Amazon. That car has a sunroof, but I knew this antenna wants a flat ground plane under it... so I mounted it in the center of my trunk lid. Here you can see both vehicles and both antennas:
Fun fact: one day our local ham group was discussing a particular repeater. I mentioned how it was off the air. I was quickly corrected by individuals who said they use it regularly. Hmm, guess I better try again. I walked outside to the car, fired up the radio, and tuned to the proper frequency and tone. I could not hit the repeater at all on 5w output. When I stepped up to 10w, I still couldn't hit it at all. When I step up to 20w, I could almost hit it; most key-ups resulted in silence, but I did coax ONE squelch tone out of the machine. Once I step all the way up to 50w, I could get it to reply fairly consistently. When I turned on the radio in my Jeep--parked right next to the car, as seen in the photo--and lowered my output all the way down to 5w, I could hit the machine almost every time... and when I stepped up to a mere 10w, I hit it EVERY time.
When I told this story to my ham group, a few of them started yelling about SWR. "Well,
clearly your car's setup has very high SWR but your Jeep's SWR is very low. That
must be the reason!" I had my doubts, but since I had never actually measured the SWR in either setup I thought I should do that before saying anything. I took each vehicle to a local ham friend who has some fancy SWR reading equipment. It turns out the car has significantly lower SWR than the Jeep. As he summed it up, "all else being equal, a taller antenna will outperform a shorter one."
Since all of the above, I have now also installed an FT-7900R into my tow vehicle: a 2001 Suburban. Now convinced of the performance of the Larsen NMO2/70B, I made the obvious choice and ordered another one. On that vehicle, I mounted it with a hood bracket that hangs above the fender lip, so that means it is
sorta like the bracket shown on the JK at the top of this post. Nevertheless, this antenna has proven to be an excellent performer just like in my Jeep. I mention this because your JK won't have a flat piece of fender to replicate my setup... but it might not be absolutely necessary.
This is why I recommend you select a Larsen NMO2/70 rather than a Tram 1181 (or any other shorter antenna, frankly).