Hey guys. New question for yall. I have a company issued KW T680. It has the dual cb antennas off the mirrors. Ive asked about removing the coax and installin a vhf/uhf radio, coax and antenna into one side, and replacing the others cb coax. I was unfortunatly told negative. Mag mounts are a no-go, trucks all fiberglass and aluminum, cant have anything off the hood. Only other option is the fairings in the rear. Attached is a few pictures of the rear of cab and fairings. ANYONE have ANY idea what i can use for this. Apologies if the pictures dont come out good
All semis make a huge noise on VHF, 2m. You really don't want that band on board, I'm sure it would not be usable. However there are several antennas that do not need a ground such as magmount. Diamond makes one for 2m+70cm. Look for "collinear dipole". Good luck and tell us what you end up doing!
You might try a simple wire dipole attached vertically to the edge of the cab fairing. Should only cost about a buck or two for the wire. Not perfect due to the trailer being close by but it might get you on the air. John WD5IKX
With no photos of the front of the unit, not sure if it would work (or even on the side sleeper Windows) a dual band glass mount antenna. Not as good as a 5/8 wave, probably, but it'll get you by better than nothing.
I use a 5/8 on the mirror arm on a kenworth k200. I didn’t change the factory coax just changed the antenna. The noise problem, what rubbish. 2meters and 70cm no problem both rx and tx. I also run a Commerical dual band 2m & 70cm plus aprs 1/4 wave on the roof. Made up a frame from aluminium put chicken netting over it and stuck it to the roof. The whole system works very very well. Out preforms most car mobiles because I have extra height, all antenna’s running about 4 meters above the ground. Working on a screwdriver antenna at the moment, will see how that preforms Kevin ZL3JS
The t2000 has a different mirror bracket style So lets rephrase. Back of truck will be a no go due to limited space between trailer and the aluminum fairings. So if i made a modified nmo mount that was able to clamp around the mirror arms (google kw t680 mirror) with them being plastic, could i just run a "ground strap" wire into a bolt? And speaking of aprs, im buying an icom id5100 for the truck, gps is built in is it not or will i need to install gps antenna too
Hey yall. Just wanna say thanks for the assistance. I went with a luggage mount from diamond thanks to dxengineering. Mounted around the mirror. Will have to run a groundstrap. Seems to work. Now just to get the radio!
do you have any photos of the mount you used...i just started driving a t680 and i need to get an antenna on it...i bought a comet cu660 luggage rack mount, it wont work... thank you