Looking for suggestions for HF mobile rig

UPDATE: If anyone is still reading this, the ts-140 arrived today. Seems to work ok. A little dingd up but nothing serious. Leaving out Monday on another run to New England, will let you know how it goes. Got an idea for a homebrew antenna, will be trying it out when i get it constructed. Pics will post if successful. 73's

 

UPDATE: If anyone is still reading this, I thought I'd let you know that the TS-140 from ebay works very well. It just got home from it's first trip in the truck. I didn't have time to finish the homebrew antenna mentioned earlier before we left but caught a 10 meter opening. First contact with this rig was (believe it or not) W1AW/7, operating from Oregon. I was running down I70 in Indiana at the time. Gonna try to get the 20 meter antenna finished before I go back out tomorrow.

 

I'm still reading. TS-140 is a nice radio. Congrats and enjoy!

 

So.... what happened? Inquiring minds wanna know...

I ran an ICOM IC-706mkIIG and a tarheel 200A on my 2002 Chevy Silverado pickup for about 10 years, with GREAT Signal reports (many unsolicited from DX stations) but took it off when I completely rebuilt the body to get rid of 10 years of rust... never got it back on. But, I need to do that. Grounding/bonding/noise suppression makes all the difference... Seriously. Good luck!

p.s. I may change careers and go back into trucking myself... sounds like over-the-road is the only way to make money. HF will have to fit somehow....

 

Sorry for the delay in getting back on. Been running my wheels off, literally (more on that later)...at any rate...Mobile operation has been a success so far. Right now I'm on 10, 15, and 20 meters. You guys may laugh at my antenna though. For 15 and 20 meters, I'm a using a modified version of what is probably the ugliest CB antenna ever built, but the thing surprisingly is an amazing antenna. It's called the "Terminator II", marketed in truck stops by a company called "Truck Spec". I bought the first one because of it's claim to be wide banded, useable on both 10 and 11 meters. Before you turn inside out, yes, I do occasionally use an 11 meter radio. Many of the places I deliver to use them to communicate with drivers...it's a necessary evil. Anyway, I did a little digging into this antenna's specs and with a little math, discovered that at least theoretically, I should be able to pull it down to 15 meters by changing the length of the whip. It comes with a 2 ft whip sticking out the top, and I replaced that with a 6 foot whip, and presto...15 meters! Best of all, it retained its broadband characteristics. I can operate the entire 15 meter phone band with a less that 1.5:1 SWR. I've worked many stations, both domestic and DX with it, and get good reports from all of them. Here's where it gets good though...one day, 15 was dead as a doornail. Couldn't hear a peep out of anybody anywhere, so I flipped down to 20 to see if there was anything going on. As it happened, there was lots happening there so just out of curiosity I gave it a try through my mfj tuner to see if it would load up. Tune up was suprisingly easy, and once again, I could operate the entire phone band without retuning. I found that in itself amazing, but best of all, it works like gangbusters on that band too! I keep hearing comments like "really strong signal for a mobile..what are you using?"

So, I leave my tuner in the line, and use it for a bandswitch basically. The ten meter antenna is on "antenna one", and the modified one is on "antenna two" I use the bypass positions for 10 and 15, and the tuned position for "two" for 20 meters. I'll try to get some pics of all this during my next run and post them when I get back. Leaving tomorrow for a PA run so I should have some time in there somewhere.

Oh..the running the wheels off comment earlier...well, that was a slight exaggeration. Had a tire blow up on this trip. Made for a few moments of excitement but nothing serious.

73's

Bryan