Desert Fox

Congratulations on passing your Tech test with a perfect score. Sorry to hear that your local HAM Club is not up to par. I suggest that you contact the club that administered your test and see if they will work with you long enough to get you up and running. I'm sure that they will. The club that I belong to has over 100 members and we are very active. We frequently have folks from 30 miles away attend your meetings and to get help until they can get their feet on the ground when they are starting out. As soon as you receive your call sign, I recommend that you go on line and join the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). This is a HAM organization that has existed for 100+ years. It has a monthly magazine QST and offers 100's of services to the HAM community. The web site can be found at: membership@arrl.org
If you have any more questions, please let me know. 73, W6PBR

bbolander

I have the Arizona mounts on the back for both Ham and CB, and my spare tire is mounted on the tailgate. Although the antennas are only 13" apart I have used both Ham an CB at the same time on the trail with the Ham on simplex and it's worked. I've also used a hood mount Ham antenna along with the rear mount CB at the same time and it worked fine. Not an ideal setup since the rear antennas aren't 24" apart, and since the rear Ham cable has a mini cable end portion and the hood mount cable is all mini cable.

But it has worked OK. I think that without a spare tire on the back you could use the shorter mount you're thinking about.

I have a mobile Yaesu ham with the remote control head, and I mounted the head with velcro on my drivers side sun visor. I mounted the cb from the front windshield footman loop with some local hardware store brackets.

rocklax

I may just swap out my actual antenna with a 13" and then run an 18"ish HAM antenna on the front driver's side. Call me stupid, but I don't want obnoxious 50+" antennas of my JK. I can probably handle around 40" off of the back. So basically I need to decide/get feedback on whether 18" or so upfront is better/worse than say a 40" off of the gate area.

For the short term the cb idea is on hold, had to spend a few hundred on pads, calipers, and rotors :( ...

Desert Fox

You now have two expensive hobbies:

- Jeep = Just Empty Every Pocket

- HAM = Handover Another Million

That's why you must remember

Good enough is best of all

W6PBR

pitbull62

to the op. unless your cb is going to be used for on trail comm i wouldnt bother. there is noone on cb radio like there was when i was a kid and spend hours on it foolin around. i do have one in my jeep on the footmans loop like another poster but like i said it is useless, great for on the trail as not all jeepers are hams. i also am looking on best way to get a ham antenna on the jeep. good luck!

maxspongebob

The best way to get a HF antenna on the Jeep is with a Breedlove mount. I use a Ball mount on a Puck. https://www.breedlovemounts.com/ball-mounts.html

Here is the mount after hitting a tree. The tree just scraped some paint off the antenna mount, but completely busted the rear taillight off. There is no stronger mount for a big antenna.

bbolander

That's interesting to see come up, back in the day that's what everyone used for CB antennas. Today all the new options are designed for one thing - to avoid drilling a hole in your vehicle. If you're willing to do that, it's the perfect choice since the ham and cb antennas can be located apart from each other too.

maxspongebob

If you note, my Jeep has the AEV armor corners. After drilling the first hole it gets a lot easier.

If you don't drill a hole, you will never get a really good counterpoise ground plane. The majority of the mounts that I have seen, where they are bolted onto existing brackets, tire carriers, tailgates, are poorly grounded.

There is an old adage, if you have $100 to spend, get a CB for $20 and spend the rest on the antenna. It's good advice.

BTW, this mount is for my HF antenna. My CB uses a 3' Firestick mounted on the tailgate like everyone else does. I don't really care if the range of my CB is short, I only use it on the trail to talk to vehicles that are close. If I want distance, I use the cell phone or 20 or 40 Meters HF. My Ham radio at 100 watts will cover most of the US, Canada and Mexico the CB at 4 watts will cover the people around me on the trail.

All told, my Jeep looks like a porcupine. HF, VHF/UHF, CB, and AM/FM antennas.

maxspongebob

I have created a similar setup on my JK. EVO, as far as I know, is the only builder of a right and left hand antenna mount that uses the spare mounting bolts. I used these for my CB and VHF/UHF antennas. See the photo.



I don't have any problem with the setup. The height is good enough with almost all of the antenna being above the metal of the body and tire carrier. Since the hard top is fiberglass, it is transparent electrically, so I get fair forward and backward transmission. Although the antennas are close in proximity, they are very far apart in frequency, and never used simultaneously so there is not significant crosstalk between them.

My HF antenna is on the right corner on a ball mount with a whip antenna.

maxspongebob

You are correct, the antennas are different, but they are mostly the same as far as the mechanics go. What you could do, is run the cables, and install the mounts. The mounts you use would be, either a NMO or a 3/8" x 24 stud mount. If you use both NMO mounts, you can use an adapter with a Firestick type antenna for your CB and no adapter for a VHF/UHF antenna.

The big part is getting the antennas mounted and grounded properly. You also want to make sure that your cables are well terminated with water tight connections (use marine heat shrink).

Once that is done, you can connect whatever antenna you need to either mount. CB on the left, Ham on the right, CB only, or HAM only. Just make sure you connect the cables correctly on the inside and you are good to go. If you want to use your Baofeng with the VHF/UHF antenna on the rear of the Jeep, get an SMA to UHF adapter. The gain of a fixed antenna is going to be far superior to the rubber duck antenna on the radio. You should see much better performance once it is tuned up.

NMO mount on left side:


VHF/UHF antenna on right side NMO mount.


Firestick antenna with 3/8" to NMO adapter (black thing at antenna base):