2018 F350 CB Antenna Front Bumper Mount
2018 F350 CB Antenna Front Bumper Mount Photos Finally finished up installing my CB radio in our 2018 F350. Antenna location would have been a lot easier without the truck camper in the bed....
Forum Discussion
The main reason I posted this was to give other truck camper owners an option on mounting a CB antenna so it could work with or without the camper in the bed. On our last truck, we had dual antennas on the top of our TC ladder and they worked great, but I also had to use about 70' of coax to hook them up. I also had to disconnect them when we removed the camper and install another antenna in the bed. This time, I didn't want to do any of that.
I tested the 5' Firestik bumper mounted setup out to about 3 miles on flat ground and it worked fine, SWR was 1.2 - 1.3. I had to stop at 3 miles because that was about the limit of the radio in my jeep. I thought the front bumper mount would make the transmission pattern very directional. I turned the trunk at different angles back to the jeep and had a strong signal at all angles. It may be noticeable at greater distances, we are seldom talking over a mile or so.
If I were putting the antenna on just the truck and not concerned about the truck camper, I would get one of those new SuperDuty mounts which goes between the back of the truck cab and the high mount third light.
As for getting a ham license, I have one. Problem is only one or two others in our jeep club have them; but they all have CBs. Those ham radios are nice if there is a repeater around. Our jeep club was in Silverton, Co last year and we could talk to each other 20 or 30 miles apart.
bradw
I tested the 5' Firestik bumper mounted setup out to about 3 miles on flat ground and it worked fine, SWR was 1.2 - 1.3. I had to stop at 3 miles because that was about the limit of the radio in my jeep. I thought the front bumper mount would make the transmission pattern very directional. I turned the trunk at different angles back to the jeep and had a strong signal at all angles. It may be noticeable at greater distances, we are seldom talking over a mile or so.
If I were putting the antenna on just the truck and not concerned about the truck camper, I would get one of those new SuperDuty mounts which goes between the back of the truck cab and the high mount third light.
As for getting a ham license, I have one. Problem is only one or two others in our jeep club have them; but they all have CBs. Those ham radios are nice if there is a repeater around. Our jeep club was in Silverton, Co last year and we could talk to each other 20 or 30 miles apart.
bradw
