Any Good Glass Mount UHF 450-480mhz antenna's?

[voltagex18]

Hi everybody,

Just bought a new car and I've been hesitant on drilling through my roof to put up my UHF antenna. I was wondering if anybody knew of a good glass mount antenna to use. The radio I plan to use with this antenna is a CDM-1250. Let me know.... all suggestions appreciated.

--= Eric

[DJP126]

Just my opinion...

Best bet - Drill the hole

Next best - Trunk lip mount

Next - Magnetic mount

Last is glass

[kc7gr]

DJP126 is right. If you don't want to drill holes, look at trunk lip mount next, followed by mag-mount.

Glass mount is a bad idea for two reasons. First, poor ground plane at best. I made the mistake of using glass mounts for amateur transceivers in my old Bronco II. It was a disaster! RF got into everything, and I had bad performance to boot.

73 de KC7GR

[rocketman]

Glass mount antennas are a compromise for performance. Personal experience has found a body mount (NMO) provides the best performance. Depending on the needed bandwidth, a 1/4 wave should perform well over a wide frequency range.

[kf4sqb]

Change your subject to "any good glass mount antennas", and you will still get a resounding "NO!!" .

[ricciticcitembo]

Yup. Agree with everybody above. I got an antennex 400Mhz
Glassmount, and it sucked SO bad on TX especially compared with
a rooftop (Big ass 3/4" hole) NMO mounted Thick Maxrad 1/4 wave.

I really like those thick elements on the Maxrad UHF and VHF 1/4 waves.
Excellent VSWR ratio of 1:1 ,across a good range to boot, and cheap.
Too bad you gotta drill a hole to get the most benifit from it. Oh well.

Like the other guys said, glassmount is last choice for sure.

[larryepage]

A glass mount antenna loses at least half of your signal (3 db) to start. If it is on a tinted window, that's at least 3 db more. In addition, most of the films used to tint windows are metallized. This (usually) non-grounded sheet of "metal" is why you get so much secondary radiation, loss, and poor SWR. Also...the lost energy goes mostly into the glass. I have seen a couple of cases where the glass got so hot with extended transmit that it shattered (no, not my own, thank goodness).

All that said, you can still make a case that a wet piece of string outside a vehicle is better than anything you can do with an inside antenna.

I do not have an answer to your actual question concerning the 'best' glass mount antenna. My guess is that the differences between the antennas are fairly small compared to the difference between a glass mount and one of the other options.

Regards,

[kf4sqb]

Speaking of a "glass mount", ya'll are going to love this! I know someone who deceided that he already had enough holes for antennas in his truck. So he built his own "glass mount" for his UHF PAC-RT. He simply stripped the outer jacket off of the end of a piece of coax to the proper length for a 1\4 wavelength, folded the braid back and attached two 1/4 wave lengths of 22 guage solid wire to the braid to form a "t" for a ground plane, stripped the inner insulator from the center conductor of the coax, and used Scotch tape to attach the center conductor to the inside of the rear side window of his Suburban, with the ground plane and coax hidden behind the inside trim panel. The window in question is factory tinted, so the "antenna" practicaly dissapears. As this is only for a PAC, it seems to work pretty well. A little off-topic, I guess, but I thought ya'll might get a kick out of this!

[voltagex18]

Thanks guys for all the ideas and suggestions. I really which though there was a good alternate sollution to drilling.

--= Eric

Any other ideas.... keep'm comming

[kf4sqb]

Well, mag-mounts generally work OK. Just watch where you route the coax and remove the mag base every now and then to clean under it/let it dry under it.

[central150]

I had a glass mount...sucked! I grew a set of ball$ and drilled through the roof. My RX and TX is vastly improved from the dreaded glass mount.

-Tony

[Haloncloud]

I have roof mount NMO and glass mount ant. As for performance I am just as happy with my Glass mount as NMO roof. As for glass mount I'm going to recommend the Larson line they have several diffrent setups UHF, VHF and Dualband. I use the Dualband on my truck and have had a antenna analizer on it and had good SWR numbers in 450-480. If you dont mind spending the money try a glass mount and see if it gives you the performance you need if not I would recommend roof mount NMO. Well thats just my two cents.

Haloncloud