Born to be Wild - well at least as far as mobile HF goes.

When I first decided to get a real mobile rig instead of the HT I had been using I starting thinking about working HF mobile. Why not? After all I was subjected to strict CC&R regulations and doing HF on the road offered me FREEDOM from any constraints due to my location. I was free to drive up to the highest hill or put whatever antenna I wanted on my van as long as it met the D.O.T. height requirements. I started feeling like Wyatt and Bill in the movie “Easy Rider”.

Then I started to search the web for information on installing a mobile HF rig and got scared off. Seems like there are only a few web sites that almost EVERYONE uses as their bible for mobile installation do's and don'ts. To my dismay I read about running bonding straps from every segment of my van to each of it's neighbors. My choice of an antenna mount was no good and would not work well. I had to ground my muffler, look out for the numerous computers hidden around my van and those pesky airbags that could deploy when I keyed my mic. Apparently the fuses that came with my power cable were not good enough and I needed more and then there was all that noise generated from the various parts of my engine. Apparently I HAD to do it right or suffer horrible HF performance as anyway else sucked the RF juice right out of my rig.

I read scientific data that proved that my choice of antenna was little better than a dummy load and the position of it would make it difficult to talk across the street much less around the world. It seemed that all the equipment I was contemplating on getting would only result in a lot of money spent with poor results.

Despite my “Easy Rider” feeling, I still had some self imposed restrictions. I wanted an antenna that would allow me to enter my parking garage at work without having to get out of the van to remove it first. I know me. If something becomes inconvenient I stop using it. I also wanted to be able to hide the antenna once parked as I had previously been robbed of all my mobile electronics a few months prior. I also did not want my van to look like something from outer space.

I briefly gave up on the idea as apparently my choice of equipment was not going to work well according to the armchair internet experts. It was back to using the HT, this time with a mobile amp. I had wires going here and there and everywhere but it was not the same as taking to someone in Estonia while driving to work. Then one day I was talking to Bob Penny, my favorite HRO salesman whose children I put through college, and mentioned that I spent almost 3 hours a day in my van driving to and from work and therefore spent much more time using the radio in my van than I did at home. I told him that I had considered mobile HF but got scared off. He told me that he used to do mobile HF with a lot less equipment than I was contemplating and without all of the “necessary” things that had to be done to ensure success. He got me thinking again and gave me confidence that just maybe I could enjoy HF doing things “my way”. My requirements were as follows:

I did my homework and this is what I came up with:

Rig - Icom IC-7000 with AB5N mic mod. Thanks Bob!

Antenna - HF: High Sierra Sidekick with “Spurs”, VHF/UHF: Larsen NMO Dual Band

Antenna Tuner - Turbo Tuner.

Antenna Mount - Diamond K400-3/8C (Trunk lip mount) for HF, Diamond K412CNMO for UHF/VHF antenna.

Antenna Quick Release - Hi-Q GQD. It is the only one I found that is made to support the diameter of a screwdriver antenna.

My van has a compartment under the floorboard between the first and second row of seats that is hidden under a floor mat and is lockable. My brother-in-law ran the power cables from my battery through an existing grommet in the van's firewall and then under the carpet into the compartment with the radio. The wires for the remote head and speaker were also run under the carpet so that they were out of sight. The remote head and microphone, when not in use, fits nicely into a slide out drawer under the passenger's seat in the van so when not in use there is no evidence of a radio other than the antenna mounts on the rear door.

I set up the trunk lip mounts on either side of my van's rear door approximately in the middle of the door as I had no choice as that was the only area that had a lip. In fact, the choice of antennas was determined by this factor. Since almost half the antenna lengths were below the roof of the van I swung the mounts out so that the antennas would not be located directly to the rear of the van. Using very thin coax I ran both antenna feed lines under the van's trim by simply lifting it up with a screwdriver and pushing the coax under it. I ended up with a mobile installation that met all of my requirements as far as antenna height, ability to hide gear, ease of use (safety) and wife acceptability (well almost). All done with no holes routing wires in existing spaces. For long trips a Heil Traveller headset (one ear covered only) makes it a little bit less distracting.

Like an excited school boy I turned my creation on. Made my first contact to a station in Norway in a matter of minutes on 20m and got a good signal report. OK, so far so good. I tuned through the bands and then my radio shut down. Hmmm, did I short circuit anything? Hope that I did not ruin my new radio. I tentatively turned the power back on again and was thrilled when the power came back on. Great! Wife will not kill me now. I tuned to 6 meters and pressed my tune button and it happened again. Oh oh, maybe the internet gurus were correct after all. Darn you Bob Penny! I next tried 10 meters with the same results. All the other bands were working well though. Not being a complete idiot I guessed that excessive RF was causing the SWRs to exceed 3:1 and my radios protection circuits were doing what they were supposed to do; give me a heart attack. My base station radio at least is nice enough to flash high SWR rather than inconsiderately shut down with no indication of what the problem is.

As soon as I got home I emailed High Sierra and Jim, the owner, emailed me back quickly with some very useful grounding hints that did not include anything that I could not easily do. I ignored some of his advice (sorry Jim) and followed the rest. Apparently I was victim to the dreaded mobile RF problem that I had read about but as I was to find out, the solution was not as drastic as some wanted me to believe. I simply ran some braided ground strap from the two antenna mount screws closest to the antenna mount on my rear door to an existing bolt on the rear body of the van. This bonded the door to the back of the van or at least I hoped so. I next ran a short run of grounding strap from the ground screw on the IC-7000 to one of the screws in the bottom of the driver's sear. I figured that the seat had to be connected to the body. All in all I used less than 3 feet of bonding strap. One last item was necessary and that was a simple ferrite snap on choke for the remote head cable. Actually, subsequent testing showed that the choke was all that was necessary as there is a known problem with RF and the 7000's remote head cable. In any event, success was finally mine and I could tune all over the place without the rig shutting down on me and with an SWR of 1.5:1 in most cases.

What I ended up with was a rig that I could control with a hand mic, tune with the hand mic, allowed me easy garage access, could be stowed away so that it would be out of sight and allowed me to remove or replace my HF antenna in under 30 seconds. All without making a hole in the van. Of course this came with a steep price tag, higher than that of my base equipment at that point, but worth it in my eyes since it allowed me to work HF for a few hours each day. It has made a stressful task twice a day into something I now look forward to. I even get into the right hand lane so I can go slow when there is some good DX out there. I do want to emphasis at this point that your HF mobile setup does not have to be as elaborate or expensive as what I did. A simple used HF rig with a hamstick will give you many hours of fun. In fact, a friend of mine sold his Sidekick antenna and tuner, etc. and now just uses a hamstick with great results. For me, at least, I could live with just 20 meters. Always seems to be someone to talk to there.

How well does it work? Well if you listen to me tell it, it works great. What else am I going to say? I work a lot of mobile DX, get “real” good signal reports, sometimes better than I get with my base antenna and have a lot of fun during rush hour. Who can ask for anything more? OK, I know it can be better but that does not translate into more fun for me. Now maybe if I grounded my mufflers and each section of the van's body, and mounted my antenna on the roof and so forth I could squeeze out some more db's but I am not one of those people who wants to climb mountains because they are there. I get enough action in my van to keep me very satisfied and YES I am talking about HF mobile and not what you are thinking! I get lots of reports about my strong audio (thanks again Bob) so I am very pleased with what I have put together. I also discovered that most DX stations love working mobiles and will go out of their way to pick me up in a pile up. Sometimes when I have problems reaching a particular DX station I will simply get in my van and, well, you get the picture. Hmmm, if I put my base rig on roller skates does that make it a mobile?

As I learned through my adventures with antennas in a CC&R environment, do not let others tell you what you can or can not do. Listen to all advice but do not accept it blindly. You do not have to achieve HF Mobile Nirvana and can have fun with somewhat less. Our little hobby does not have to be a decision between nothing or perfection. I hope that I have encouraged others to go HF mobile.

Steppenwolf: "Born To Be Wild."

“Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die.
Born to Be Wild
Born to Be Wild...”