How not to install an antenna

WD4JKH · Post by **WD4JKH** » Sat Aug 23, 2003 9:47 pm

I thought some of the folks here might get a kick out of this one I ran across awhile back:

BTW, it was low band...

70351 · Post by **70351** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 2:08 am

Good GOD!! Someone needs to be SHOT!!

That's the most rediculous thing I've ever seen! I bet there's a lot of really bad antenna install pictures like this floating around out there!

Randy

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 7:09 am

What the? IT'S NOT EVEN DUCT TAPE!!!! Travesty I tell you!!

KitN1MCC · Post by **KitN1MCC** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 9:32 am

but the it looks like an electric utlity vehicle. that is very mormal after the guys tear them off the truck with a tree

wa2zdy · Post by **wa2zdy** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 10:57 am

Ahhhhhhhh NOW I know why I can't hear that guy anymore . . . heh heh heh.

I'd say this is a good example of some "installer" not checking the SWR after he was done. If he had . . .

This could be funny - fill this thread up with pics of such antennas.

Glen W Christen · Post by **Glen W Christen** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:35 am

Earlier this summer I replaced a folded-dipole (literally) base station antenna in much the same condition. (Broken in half, then taped the two haves back on each other) Lucky for them, they only needed a few hundred yards of coverage

Tom in D.C. · Post by **Tom in D.C.** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 10:28 am

If you've ever attempted, as I did (only once!) to explain SWR, ground planes, etc. in general terms to a non-techie then you'll remember how their eyes glaze over about eight seconds into the conversation, then they just wander off.

Those unfortunate souls who are not "into" radio but still want to use the service, in any form, often need a lot of help to stay out of trouble. I'm always sort of torn between offering help and just - -staying out of the /looking the other - - way.

I did once see a pickup with a CB base-loaded whip mounted on top of an "A" frame that stuck up behind the cab, so the guy had a decent ground plane at least, with the antenna in the clear, but that's the exception, not the rule, as far as I can see.

sglass · Post by **sglass** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:47 am

back in high school I knew a guy who mounted his radio shack dual whip cp antennas onto the rear bumper of his pickup......without the little plastic pieces

no bs here

he actually drilled hols in the bumper and threaded it through-without the insulationg plastic thingy.

he could never figure out why he didn't get out better. I ended up selling him a k40 for some stupid amountof moner-beacuse it actually worked.

then there was my friend that bought an old police car and used the uhf whip onit for cb-because a prince georges county cop told him it was a cb antenna-I could not tell him any different.

what else.....

I'll think of more, just give me time

70351 · Post by **70351** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:01 pm

Sometime in the mid 80's I worked with a guy who stuck one of those fake on-glass cell phone antenna's on his pickup truck. Only problem was (aside from the antenna being fake), he stuck the antenna on the side of the cab on the METAL part and not the glass!

So, not only was the antenna fake, but the guy stuck it on a metal surface to boot.

Almost as bad as those gold crowns I used to see everywhere. I used to see cars with the entire back window lined with them.

Whatever . . . .

Randy

Jay911 · Post by **Jay911** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:19 pm

I'm no installer, but I'm thinking this was wrong..

I once saw a fellow on my fire department who'd put a fender-mount antenna on his Astro van. Instead of figuring a way to mount the fender bracket on the correct plane, he mounted it flush with the fender (which, if you know Astro vans, is about a 60 degree angle) and just grabbed the antenna about 3 inches up from the bracket with some pliers and bent it until it was vertical..

--j.

Dale Earnhardt · Post by **Dale Earnhardt** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 11:23 pm

OMG, I think I should go back to my old house about 5 years ago, when I didnt know crap about radios, or antennas lol

I will take a pic of these base I had, which was a magmount, for CB, and I used it as a UHF antenna and for scanner, espically those old GMRS radios, and guess what kind of coax was used!!!!...................................
speaker wires!!!

like I said, I wasnt radio eduacated back then lol. That antenna probally was a 50SWR

Since these day I moved from that house, those new owner dont even know what the heck that is on there.

sglass · Post by **sglass** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:35 am

oh the worst was my friend who pinched his coax in half

so he stripped it all down
and tied them all together-dead short

Flametamer · Post by **Flametamer** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 6:49 am

I work in a hospital and the guy that handles the patient-room TV's came to me needing something soldered. He had "made" a 3-way coax splitter by twisting some coax together and wanted me to solder it together for him. Some people...

dt

VSP5151 · Post by **VSP5151** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 2:51 pm

I maintained a system where a deputy sheriff "grounded his antenna to water". He ran a piece of wire from one of the 1/4 inch bolts that held his whip antenna on to a gallon jug of water he kept in the trunk. "really made a great difference" he claimed
Proof that not all nuts grow on trees!!!!

c17loadsmasher · Post by **c17loadsmasher** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:59 pm

I work for Comcast, and we often find interesting things customers do in an attempt to either activate more outlets in their house, or to repair/join pieces of cable together. So far my favorite was three pieces of RG6 coax with the center conductors stripped back, twisted together, and the goon wire-nutted them together. He did the same with the aluminum/mesh shielding (we use quadshield). Hilarious. Usually, most people go to Radio Shack and get their junk coax accessories, and we just replace their junk with our equipment.

jim · Post by **jim** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 5:07 pm

...you mean that doesn't work? I better go and redo that 800 MHz RG6 splitter at county 911!

apco25 · Post by **apco25** » Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:48 pm

Bad antenna things I've seen at an agency I work for - and no I don't get to work on the radios there - the other two agencies I do. These vehicles are not in my division, thankfully.

SAE technicians do the installs and while good at vehicle repairs don't know squat about radio installation (their own admission)

year old John Deere aggricultural tractors - top of the line enclosed cabs models with all the toys - install of the radio in the cab is quite neat, but the antenna is an abortion.

roof is fiberglass over a steel ROPS frame. So instead of buying a ground plane kit and a thick mount NMO, they just bolt a 1/4 inch thick steel plate 1 x 6 inches long onto the roof and jam the NMO through and surround it with tons of silicon sealant UGLY!

Brand new Sterling Highway Plow Truck - properly done NMO in the center of the roof except the antenna (UHF 1/4) is too tall to fit under the dump box headache cover - solution just cut the extra height of the antenna off. It looks like an 800Mhz 1/4 now! The huge chunk of steel over the antennas certainly detunes it as well.

Another vehicle has the antenna mounted and the cable run through a door jam seal - to avoid crushing the cable the door jam was "notched" with a 1/4 drill bit. Nothing like a ragged hole, in the weather seal that has nearly cut through the cable in 8 months of use.

SHAKING HEAD.

I've offered to do the radio work with no luck. I guess the 500K fire truck installs and custom work I do on my own vehicle doesn't qualify.

mt1000ff · Post by **mt1000ff** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:32 pm

E-One pumper. All Alum cab. 1/8 steel plate 8"X8", lots of silcone, magnet mount ant. Radio 10-8. Professional install by local M shop.

jbxx · Post by **jbxx** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 4:37 am

In reference to the last post, got me thinking.
Would there be any problem using an aluminum
cab as a ground plane? Seems like it would be OK
to me. May even work better.
J.B. AD6WX

Tom in D.C. · Post by **Tom in D.C.** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 5:39 am

Aluminum or steel makes no difference, just as long and the frame, body, cab sheet metal, etc. are all connected together. In well-done installations a grounding strap is sometimes bolted at both ends between, for instance, the trunk lid and body, and the engine hood and body, and also between the frame (in frame and body vehicles) and the body.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 7:23 am

mt1000ff wrote:E-One pumper. All Alum cab. 1/8 steel plate 8"X8", lots of silcone, magnet mount ant. Radio 10-8. Professional install by local M shop.

They mag mounted the antenna to a Fire Truck??

jcobb · Post by **jcobb** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 7:52 am

Guess they figured that "if a magnet won't stick, then the radio waves won't bounce off of it, so the steel is there to hold the antenna and bounce the radio waves".

Maybe they should have gotten one of those "aluminum welders" that those guys are always selling at Dayton.....

That's what happens when you pay your installers minimum wage.

Just my 2 pesos worth.

Jack

mastr · Post by **mastr** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 4:37 pm

"I work for Comcast, and we often find interesting things customers do"....

I was a "Comcaster" for several years as well, one of the most noteworthy things I found was a guy hanging off one of my LE poles (stepped) about 6 pm one evening. He would look toward his mobile home and shout "how about now??" while his wife stood in the door. I shut my truck off and coasted up right under the pole--At that point the wife shouted "look down". The following dialog was--

THIEF-"what?"

WIFE-" look down below!"

THIEF-" Its not down there, it has to be one of these"

WIFE-" NO, NO look down"

THIEF-" I don't know what the **** you mean"

WIFE-" The **** cable man is here, look down"

At that point, I looked up at "Joe Thief" and asked him to kindly vacate my pole. I subsequently found 6 illegals in that area--I'll bet his neighbors all loved him.

mt1000ff · Post by **mt1000ff** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 8:32 pm

"They mag mounted a fire truck?"
Yes they did. I have not mounted many anntennas to E-One's, the roof on this one was at least 1/2" thick alum, regular NMO mount would not work. "What are we going to do with this hole now?" Steel plate, silcone, and mag mount both problems solved.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 8:36 pm

OK, so what happens when said E-One apparatus goes under a low bridge or low tree branch? Said engine loses radios.

mt1000ff · Post by **mt1000ff** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:07 pm

No not really, we are on UHF they used the short quarter wave so the annt tip is not as high as the deck gun and they used the platic cable supports with a sheet metal screw into the roof every foot or so.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 7:03 am

Our deck guns and antennas still clip tree branches on a lot of driveways and back roads. But, if that isn't a problem in your area.... ok.

CTAMontrose · Post by **CTAMontrose** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 8:50 am

when i worked for a trucking company driving a panel van, we had our 800Mhz antennas magmounted to the INSIDE of the truck.. i guess whoever installed that took his lessons from a microwave oven...

Talk permit tone? what is that??

oh and the "base" antenna was yet another mag mount, using plastic tie wraps around a wooden coat rack in the office...

top notch indeed!

2wayguy · Post by **2wayguy** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 3:22 pm

They make antenna mounts that work on thick roofs. I use them all the time on fire trucks, E-one's included... Cost less than $20. I would think that if they were really a "pro" shop they would know that these things exist.......

mt1000ff · Post by **mt1000ff** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 9:07 pm

Yeah you would think, sad but true.

motorolamonster911 · Post by **motorolamonster911** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 9:16 pm

Nothin beats our old glorious 911 system. 7 towers covering 1 county. Should have exellent coverage right? nope, seems the idiot running the place decided that it would be alot easier to use 2 frequencies for all of his UHF links to those remote towers. I guess he figured that since those directional yagis he put up were "so directional" a tower on the other side of the county would not key up. On a good day you would have 3 or 4 towers keying at once. The directional antennas he put up served no purpose anyway. He never correctly pointed them to the dispatch center, just kind of guessed. Its a jacklegged job if I have ever seen one.

- Nick

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 2:38 pm

motorolamonster911 wrote:On a good day you would have 3 or 4 towers keying at once.

Well, that must have made some interesting sounds. It sounds odd enough when TWO key up at once, let alone 4.

There is a Yagi on the roof of out dispatch center that is a backup link to the repeater. Couldn't figure out why it wasn't working when the moved into the new station. As I understand it, the thing was torn down and taken apart ad nauseum to figure out why the damn thing wouldn't work. Finally, someone went on the roof with a compass, turned it around, and it worked great

mancow · Post by **mancow** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:19 pm

I drove by our ambulance service station a while back and glanced at a small tower on the roof. The 3 element uhf yag just didn't seem quite right.

I slowed down and looked a bit longer.... they have it pointed directly INTO the tower it's mounted on.

mancow

tiredfireman · Post by **tiredfireman** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:02 pm

Well, my most favorites used to be low band antennae mounted against a box body so the the tip just about cleared the roofline. Trying to explain that the radio likely doubled as a cab heater went nowhere.
But my new favorite is our O.E.M. guy who whips out his whip (u guessed it- magnetic) and plants it on the windowsill. when he ran into a sill that was aluminum, no worries, just stick it upside down in the drop ceiling grid. Rambling about OSHA rf exposure limits etc. got that same glazed over look and the response "but it works". And so it does, for the 1/4 mile to the repeater site.
But wait, there's more. $'s found to upgrade our 1970's radios to stuff from this century, but alas, ran out of money for antenna installs. Not a factor, magnets to the rescue. Simply take a 1/4 wave UHF and slap it on top of the flourescent light in the drop ceiling so it can play with all the other wiring up there! But it worked (on transmit) But in our 1930's blockhouse of a fire station, with leaves on the trees, seems that 6" whip JUST managed to light the antenna display on the radio (CDM1250) -- zero bars. After nearly missing an alarm, the covert guys switched the 1/4 wave for a 3db gain unit on a spare truck (it just xmited into the ladder anyway) so at least dispatch could be heard. But, still not liking the tan we were getting in the office, "somebody" moved the old base Yagi and coax over to the other end of the building & remounted it. You guessed it -- OEM guy says "see it works, all the bars are there". Yep.

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:59 pm

Oh thats nothing. At our town hall, there is a mobile VHF gain antenna on L-bracket for a fender mount.... screwed to an air duct INSIDE the drop ceiling of a steel framed building.

You can guess how well that works.

KG6EAQ · Post by **KG6EAQ** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 1:35 pm

nmfire10 wrote:Oh thats nothing. At our town hall, there is a mobile VHF gain antenna on L-bracket for a fender mount.... screwed to an air duct INSIDE the drop ceiling of a steel framed building.

You can guess how well that works.

ROFL! City employees... yeeesh!

Jay G. · Post by **Jay G.** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 2:56 pm

And they wonder why cancer is so common!!

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 3:17 pm

KG6EAQ wrote:
nmfire10 wrote:Oh thats nothing. At our town hall, there is a mobile VHF gain antenna on L-bracket for a fender mount.... screwed to an air duct INSIDE the drop ceiling of a steel framed building.

You can guess how well that works.

ROFL! City employees... yeeesh!

Thats the thing, it wasn't even an employee at town hall. It was the "Expert" radio man who was doing this job before me. He is also the one that bought out-of-band dual band ham radios instead of commercial radios for OEM and left the antenna coax for that one in the cieling coiled up in a ball.

I was reading over the inventory when I started and I couldn't find this damn VHF antenna anywhere. It wasn't on a vehicle and it wasn't signed out to anyone. I basicly wrote it off as "lost/stolen/missing". Imagine my surprise when I got on a ladder and was looking for coax cable routing paths and saw the missing antenna screwed to an air duct.

Cam · Post by **Cam** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 4:48 pm

You'll a bunch of whiners, at least you got antennas at all.

I few years ago, we were really get sick of Nextel and I was looking around for something different. I demo portables for a LTR UHF system, the system sucked downtown were we needed it the most. There was a new 900 Mhz (and it was /\/\ too) going up and the site was the tallest building downtown (and in the city). We tryed a set of portables, and they worked great. We when ahead and got some MTX9000 and a MCS 2000 for the office. They came and "installed" the MCS 2000, power supply and all. Your office is one the ground floor of a three store building and face the wrong side for getting to the site. The plan was for the radio shop guys to put a yagi on the roof, facing the site. They mounted the yagi and spent the next two day running the coax up to it. At the end of the day, your secretary was aready gone and the office was locked, so they left anf put a note in the drop box saying they were done. We been using the MTX's for a few days now and so the next day we tryed to use the base as well. Powered on, but didn't work. We tryed a few things and couldn't get it to work. Your secretary called the shop and they said it would be a few days before they could make it out. Later that day, myself and another guy got up in the roof to try the portables next to the antenna (I don't know that much about radio them) and what do you know, the coax is NOT CONNECTED TO THE ANTENNA. They had fished it up, but never hooked it up. The next day we had a NEW radio and your antenna was hooked up.

Cam

Glen W Christen · Post by **Glen W Christen** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:59 am

Customer installed on 800 trunking: 1) Yagi antenna above drop ceiling 2) Turned 90 degrees from tower 3) turned horizontal 4) aimed at steel air duct 5) Inside steel building 6) "It just doesn't seem to work all of the time"

Gerbil · Post by **Gerbil** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 8:12 pm

the company i used to work for had in dispatch two cdm1250 mobiles with powersupplies on the table.

Radio 1 was properly connected to a yagi on the roof pointed and tuned to the nearest tower by city-county communications employees.

Radio two had a mag mount 1/4 wave antenna stuck upside down to a square ac/heat vent on the celing of dispatch... one floor below ground level... pointed straight at the dispatch computer.

SVT · Post by **SVT** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 11:37 pm

Duct tape may hold the world together...but in that case...trouble...

thehead7 · Post by **thehead7** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 1:48 am

This isn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but it's the worst I can think of...

I happened to be in the City's Emergency Communications room when one of the Asst Fire marshals mentioned that one of the MCS2000 800 radios was exhibiting very poor performance. The trunk site was about a mile away. So, I start looking around at it, and noticed a funny feel to the feedine. I took a closer look, and found something worse than Radio Shack RG-58. Yes, boys and girls, it was Radio Shack RG-59. It gets better though. Further inspection of the entire feedline revealed two quick connect type PL259 connectors installed where the 20Ft or so of RG59 was spliced to RG8X. What vital component was missing from this equation? Well, a UHF barrel would have been nice, but instead the two UHF males were shoved together and taped up... I was actually pretty amazed that it worked at all... Also pretty amazed that the MCS had a PA section left...

He wasn't sure who was responsible for that, but he said if he ever figured it out, he'd refer to me...

Stay Motivated,
Head

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