I am about to put a cb in my truck. I want to run dual fiberglass whip antennas. I would like to mount them behind the cab, my dilemma is that one, i have stacks and two, i have a tonneau cover on the back that has to holes cut out for the stacks. How can i mount the antennas to the bed with the stacks being there and also the tonneau cover being on? How much of a gap is there between the bed and the cab? I dont have my truck here right now, so i cant look. Any ideas or advice from you guys would be great, thanks

 

I have seen trucks mount to the bed between the cab and the bed, just might be a pain to try and screw the mount down.

 

The best place is the center of your roof with the tallest antenna you can use! Ideal would be a 102" whip mounted in the center of your roof but a good quality 3-4' would be more reasonable. Dual antenna set ups are just for looks, they generally don't perform as good.

 

I was thinking of either running two 3 foot or maybe two 4 foot firestik antennas. I like the looks of two antennas better then one. I was told though if you run two antennas, that you need to have them spaced out at least 100 inches. Does this sound right? Thanks

 

check out phox's gallery. IIRC, he has his mounted on the front fender bolts. Dont look to bad IMHO

 

Firestick makes extended stake hole mounts that work with a cap or bed cover. Check out my gallery for pics. I run a single 5 foot Wilson silverload that allows me to clear the 10 foot door on my pole garage and the local Dunkin Donuts drive-thru. The setup works good enough for me but a Wilson 1000/5000 in the center of the roof is the best performing antenna I have ever used.

 

Here is how BigBlue did his with stacks:



Click the image for bigger pic.

Thank God you can't see all of him in the reflection in the tailgate

~Rob

 

Check out my Gallery for pictures of where i mounted mine.

 

I like them mounted off of the front fender, they look pretty good. I guess that is probably my best solution. I like that way Big blue has his mounted, i just dont think that would work with the tonneau cover unless i put a couple of holes in it for the antennas to come out, thanks for the ideas guys

 

How bout mount them like BigBlue has them, but spin the bracket around so they face forward, would put the antennas right in front of the tonnoe cover.

 

2 things:
1) for 2 antennas, you need a co-phase harness. You can't just 'T' the coax. Coax lengths become critical! It's EXTREMELY easy to blow the power amp or final in the radio with an impedence mismatch.

2) Where you mount the antenna is critical to the radiated signal pattern. 1 antenna you try to mount in the geometric center of the truck. That will allow a near uniform signal radiation pattern around the truck. Antennas on the sides of the truck tend to radiate signal to the sides. Radios to the front and rear will still receive a signal, you may not get the same range as a center mounted antenna.

Not trying to say 2 antennas cant be done, just be aware that you will loose signal pattern resulting in lost signal strength (read distance).

HTH

Tony