Batboard

I am about to buy a Honda 2003 CR-V and want to mount my astro spectra W3 (25 watt) under the front seat but am pulling my hair out on what antenna to use. I have a lpe-200 with convert-a-com which goes to a cell antenna and want to keep the car antenna less, kind of. Does anyone know of a good vhf 1/4 that looks like a cell or not like a vhf antenna ??

I know that I should have the center of the roof, NMO type deal but I hate cars that look like a cat detector/FCC type cars and my wife will drive it to, of course she is aware that playing with the radios will result in death/divorce.

thanks in advance.

mike

There are on-glass VHF antennas shaped like cell phone antennas. The coil in the middle of the cell antenna is the phasing coil for the fact that it is a 5dB collinear gain antenna on 800MHz. On VHF it would be sort of a loading coil (if it's one of the antennas that's less than a quarter wave tall.)

But, you are looking at a less than stellar performer. On-glass works better on the higher frequencies - though even on 800MHz they don't duplicate hardwired performance, they're close. On VHF they work ok, but not great. And once the antenna (any antenna) is less than a quarter wave in physical length, it starts to be lossy. Essentially you're wasting transmit power and receive sensitivity.

If that is acceptable to you, go for it. If not, then you may have to bite the bullet and get a "real" antenna.

Good luck,

How about the MaxRad (B)MAX Disguise series?:

http://www.maxrad.com/cgi/maxrad_products_ind.cgi?10098

Unity gain, but it does seem to fit your appearance needs.

I had a Pontiac 6000STE in 1985 on which I installed an ASP VHF thru-glass antenna. The car had small, fixed windows behind the rear doors which made it an ideal situation vis-a-vis cutting holes in the car. I managed to get the SWR down to almost 1:1 and the installation worked great. They probably still make this antenna, which had an open wire coil in the middle and was maybe 22 inches long overall. Pattern-wise you'll obviously have one that's skewed rather than omni, but I still think it's the way to go if you don't want to cut holes in the car.

Tom, W2NJS
...in D.C.

I understand what you are trying to do, but be aware...

The through-glass path will probably cost you almost 3db of signal. Even if you can tune to get the SWR low, you will still have the loss. If the glass is tinted, losses will be greater, because many modern tints are metallic. Plus, if you are on a side window, you have the additional problem of energy reflecting back from the roof of the car. On the back window, interaction with the defogger elements can cause problems, as can the black 'mask' that surrounds many windows.

So...be prepared to do some investigation and experimentation to get the best results.

Regards,
Larry Page

or.....Replace the factory antenna with a disguised one that runs the two-way and the AM-FM. The switch back when you sell the vehicle

http://www.sti-co.com

thanks guys,

You have been a hugh help and I think the STI is my first choice but wonder if they stock the CR-V model and the Maxrad as a back up.

Thanks again,

Mike