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Whip Antenna - Placing shims in the spring to keep from hitting vehicle

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#1 ·
I just wanted to post a topic for discussion regarding other options instead of a tennis ball to keep a whip from hitting vehicle.
I have just installed an AH4 tuner and an AH 2b whip on my Jeep JK. I am about to finish up the wiring from the tuner to the antenna with some GTO15.

The antenna location: Its mounted just above and to the left of the drivers side rear tail light. I have the whip tied down towards the front of the Jeep.
Riding down the road the whip is fine., however getting offroad the whip spring allows it to swing left and right hitting the hard top. This is nothing new. I know I can put a tennis ball on there to stop it (but I don't like the look of a tennis ball).

I just want to see if anyone on here may have experience modifying a whip like I am proposing and get some feedback.
I want to place shims in the spring to limit the travel of the whip towards the vehicle without to severely affecting the swr.
Right now I am using a pipe cleaner weaved in and out of 3 sections of spring. This give the desired restriction of movement. I am probably going to use some rubber as I think wire of any kind would eventually get cut and break.

Any thoughts on material.. what would be the problems with SWR concerning different materials - rubber vs wire vs ?? (the tuner I would hope can deal with what little affect the pipe cleaners or even small rubber tube threaded in the spring might create). This configuration is almost invisible and most desireable visually because you cant see it unless your up close looking at it.
I will test it out here this weekend and see what happens.

Thanks
N9BOW
 
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#2 · (Edited)
I will never wheel (go offroad) with an antenna long enough to cause that problem. If it is, I either remove it or substitute a shorter version which admittedly is tough with an HF radio. Long unrestrained whip antennas are just not a good choice of antenna for a Jeep that is being driven on a rough offroad trail. At least not in my opinion.

Both of my Wrangler's antennas are short enough that they don't sway around at all on even the toughest offroad trails. I think I'd leave a tall HF antenna back at camp or at home if the trail was tough enough to make an HF antenna sway excessively.

N6TAY
 
#3 ·
Understood and the whip can come off if I get into some harry stuff, however I want to DX in some remote places. With that said I would not consider pulling into my driveway to extreme....it still hits :) hence the desire to fix this issue with an aesthetically pleasing solution that can handle my driveway and dirt roads that are not tough... but not very even ether and cause site to side sway.

We each have different operating scenarios. If I'm going to be blazing trails or rock climbing I wont likely have the whip on, but the HF mobile work I want to do requires it to be attached.

N9BOW
 
#4 ·
Just an update on the shims. I used a pop can top which has been holding up well.
One tab did restrict the swing from left to right about 70%. a second tab has pretty much solved the local running around issues.

However really dropping into a washout still cause a strike and nothing short of taking off the antenna will stop that. I think a racket ball or a piece of aqua turf stuck to the hard top where it hits to dampen the noise and protect the paint will probably be in order.

The pop can tab is completely invisible and has helped in 95% of the places that caused the antenna to hit after the initial install.. entering into my steep drive at an angle is a non issue now.. unless I hit it to fast then well ... my bad :)
 
#5 ·
how about a tennis ball where the antenna will contact the body..

most antenna ( which i am sure will be corrected if i am wrong) will not have an issue if it does not touch a metal part of the body..
since the top of a Jeep is fiberglass it should not be a problem..
You can also just eliminate the spring or use a heavier duty spring


hope this helps somewhat

oh yeah.. a nice 102 inch whip on a Jeep is very cool.. used to run two of them .. bunny ears are awesome.. looking and sounding..
 
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