Two sector antennas on the sides of my truck?

big_cali_dave · 01-26-2005, 08:54 AM

Ok, now that I have the 1 watt amp, and it's impressive, I really want to figure out the antenna array for my truck.

I was gonna run an OMNI, but I can't get anything better than a 7 dB omni, without going to a big 16" fiberglass rod. And I don't think I want that on the roof of my lifted suburban, a little too obvious.

So what I want to do is mount 2 sector antennas into the rear corners, Build some fiberglass panels to hide them, I'm pretty sure I can make it relatively decent looking, and nobody will know what they are. This way, I could use two 20 dB antennas that have 180 degree patterns, one on each side.
I'll use a signal combiner from hyperlink, says its only got a .4 dB loss.

Problem is, I can't find sector antennas for less than $180-300$ each. And I don't know why! Anyone know of a better idea or source? ( hyperlink and fab-corp are both expensive) I could run the flat patch antennas, but they seem to have very narrow beam patterns and that would hurt the purpose of the rig.

OR

Does anyone know how well a pair of omni antennas would work? Would the signals interfere? Do they have to be perfectly vertical to work good?

I want a solution that I can hide. If it comes down to a 40" whip antenna on each side of my truck, so be it. But I'd like to bury the antennas into a panel of some kind.

Basically, if anyone has any ideas, please post them here.
Thanks!
Dave

tom2112 · 02-23-2005, 11:27 AM

Dave,

I don't know if the application is similar enough, but I know that the VHF antennas I used in the army (several foot long fiberglass poles) worked the same laying down as standing up. We used to bend them over the top of the vehicle so we didn't snag tree limbs and low wires and such.

So just use the 16" fiber pole you mentioned and lay it down. It should be real easy to hide laying down.

Later,
Tom

big_cali_dave · 02-26-2005, 05:52 AM

VHF. 30 mhz to 300 mhz has a HUGE wavelength. The antenna radiation patterns for those signals tend to be big spheres from the antenna. The radiation from a 2.4 ghz antenna is usually very flat, with the signal being say, 12 dB horizontal 360 degrees and 12 dB vertical at like, 15 degrees. If I lay a whip antenna on its side, I will end up with a very strong signal that only radiates directly out the sides of the truck. I figure I will need at least 90 degrees of coverage on the sides, and the full 180 would be preferred. From what I've seen, the sector antennas with big coverage ( >90 ) are very expensive and big...

Thanks for the bump though, I still need ideas for this.

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