How are you guys grounding you tailgate antennae mounts? Pics please!

 

I ran a ground wire from my mount to the tub. I ran it along the wire for the 3rd brake light.

 

I ran a wire from the antenna stud to inside the tailgate, then from the tailgate to the tub. AFAIK, it didn't help a bit. I was talking to a tech who consults w/ Wilson (the antenna people) about an antenna I was having trouble with and I told him about it. He said, "That's a DC ground, not an RF ground."

Read up on "bonding".

 

My antenna ground is from a bolt on the antenna bracket (see black wire with yellow crimp loop on top bolt of inverted CoolTechLLC GateMount bracked) to the sub-woofer acorn nut (other end of black wire with another yellow crimp loop). Never an issue with grounding. Great SWR. (1=1.4, 20=1.0, 40=1.5)

 

I've been trying to get decent swr readings for 2 frickin weeks now. One of my fellow jeep buddies told me to ground the gate itself and make it easy. I ran a ground wire from the tub next to the rear roll bar and ran it through the loom with the rear brake light wires and mounted it onto the gate. Swr went from 2.5 and up to 1.5 and below across the band.

 

If the bonding wire (the one you added to the gate) helped your SWR then there could be a problem with the RF ground connections on your coax. The extra bond wire shouldn't hurt anything, but shouldn't be needed either.

I get 1.1 to 1.4 readings with just the RF ground. Had to adjust the antenna to get those numbers.

 

Just for clarification, I'm a cb radio idiot, I've read as much as I can but still just don't get it (as simple as it is) the RF ground? Are you talking about the ground wire from the radio itself? Or the ground of coax mount?

 

Here is my antenna mount. I use a cobra m#75 with a panavise mount and I think it works great. I am curious though as to what range it should operate at.

 

Looks like you're in AZ?

 

I ran my ground to the subwoofer bolt (top acorn) as well. Worked perfectly and my SWR was between 1 - 1.5...