I have a Cobra 75 on the way and can't decide where to place the antenna. I've seen many on the spare tire and a few on the license plate housing. Is one location better than the other for reception? I'm also getting a 4 foot firestick or I can exchange for a 3 foot.

Thanks!

 

i just installed my cb this weekend and mounted mine on my rear tire carrier im useing a rockhard rear bumper/tire mount. it comes with a mounting hole for antenna. it also keeps the antenna low enough so i can pull it in my garage without removeing it. i bought the terraflex bracket for the tailgate but it made the antenna stick up to high. i wouldve had to remove/install everytime i went in/out

 

i had good luck with my arizona rocky roads and a 3 ft firefly on the tire carrier. it was as good as the 4 ft there. firestick recommends that 2/3 of the antenna be above the roof, which mine is with my hardtop. not sure that's necessary with a soft top. maybe someone with the license plate mount can chime in with what their swr reading is, but when i went to ham radio outlet, the expert there said the license plate location would be better for transmitting forward and backward. he actually recommended a hood mount as the best. i have one for a shorty 18" ham antenna and it works well, but I don't think i'd use it for a long cb antenna - might flex the hood mount on the hood too much.

key to sucess anywhere is a good ground.

 

Thanks! Looks like the tire carrier is the most popular place for the antenna. I will probably use the fire ring coax cable unless this is not necessary for this location.

 

Since I have steel bumpers, I ended up going with a magnetic base antenna that mounts right on the bumper. Nice and easy!

 

I first installed a two-way commercial CB antenna between the spare tire and the tailgate. After using a professional antenna analyzer I discovered that this it’s the worst place for any type of antenna CB/ham or otherwise. What’s happening is that the coil that is at the base of most commercial antennas needs to be free and open of metal, which is found in the tail gate and spare wheel. Basically what one has is a firewall shield on both sides of the antenna and it can’t radiate properly so power is reflected back to the radio, which is very bad. (at least one side of the base of any antenna should be open) I would recommend antenna placement be located above the left tail light mounted with an L bracket or on the left cowl (Opposite form the stereo antenna) with a strait bracket screwed under the hood and coming out between the hood and fender. Either way the bracket must be attached to metal for proper grounding. Also one cant open the back window and have the tailgate closed it hits the antenna that is a minus too.

 

the expert at HRO said the same thing to me when i described the arizona rocky road mount location i'd be using. he had a hummer guy mount his in that area, got terrible results and had to redo everything. he said the rear hardtop window reflects too. we did some testing at our early bronco activity a few months ago and found that the antenna touching or being close to the spare tire caused problems with reflection from the steel belts and rubber compound. one guy burned up his expensive marine ham by having his ham antenna a few inches from his metal cooler mounted on his bumper rack. for sure the best setup tested was the old fashioned ball mount attached directly to the body high up near the roof, or even a short antenna mounted on the top of the windshield or on the roof.

but with my ARR mounts after undoing my ground connections and sanding the paint off to bare metal at my antenna mount points and ground wire connections with a dremel tool (including at the tie down bolt near the rear speaker on my brand new 2012 JK - that was a tough decision), i get an swr on the cb of 1.3 inside the garage and 1.1 outside in the driveway. haven't tested the swr on the ham antennas yet but i receive repeater talk really well with the little 18" on my hood mount. in the testing process i connected my old cb mag mount and set it on the hood, excellent 1.2 swr. mag mounts in the right place work great. i used them on my 2006 TJ Rubi rear tuffy security drawer for years. found out if they're close to the rear roll bar they're lousy, move them a foot or more away from the roll bar and they got good swr readings.

we're going to a 3 day early bronco event this weekend and will be wheeling with large groups using the cb and ham on simplex and on repeater in the anza borrego desert. i'll be trying my 3 ft and 4 ft firefly cb antennas along with my 18" hood mount and 40" rear mount ham antennas then. it will be interesting how the setups work in the real world, including interference between the rear cb and ham antennas being used at the same time.

even though they might not be the ideal setup i think the ARR mount that puts the antenna base above the spare tire and 2/3 of the antenna above the roof will probaby work pretty well, at least for the cb. lots of people use them and seem happy with them. i had originally bought the gate mounts but decided not to use them because the antennas would mount low between the tire and tailgate. folks here have posted that the antenna actually touches the tire if you're using the stock tire and wheel with the gate mounts, not a good thing.

 

Thanks everyone! I'm going to try the Arizona Rocky Road spare tire mount with a 3 ft firestick (unless a firefly would be better) and firestick fire ring coax. Just ordered the bracket from ARR so if they ship quickly, I hope to have it by the weekend and get everything installed and tested.

 

Thought I haven't really had any trouble with my 2 meter Ham radio antenna mounted on right side of my spare tire carrier and my fiberglass CB antenna
Mounted in the left side of my spare tire
Carrier, I am always looking for better ways to improve my reception.

My wife has the exact same antenna set up on her 09 4 door, and it seemed the coax on the Ham antenna got a short in it
From running it thru the inside of the tailgate and up under the rear rollbar padding, and I left extra coax to allow for
When the tailgate is open, but the radio wouldn't work sometimes,
so the wife work hold the coax as she slowly opened the tailgate and the radio would receive at certain points, hence, I'd like to find somewhere better to mount antennas where the coax won't have to run thru the tailgate.

 

I tried the Fire ring coax & got crappy SWR results, got almost perfect readings with the screw in type coax on the bottom of the antenna, just my .02