Simon, I had the Shark "mini HF" whip for 20 meters and was surprised at how well it actually did work.  Mounted on my roofline, it was about 2 S-units below a "hamstick" style antenna, which isn't great performance.  But I was pleased and a bit surprised to find that it really DID work reasonably well.

The best performance I've found so far *that also fits in my parking garage* (which is a big limitation) is with Hustler resonators and aluminum masts from DX Engineering, with capacity hats.   Have a look at the cap-hat section on K0BG's website for more information on that.   I use a 15meter resonator with a cap hat on 20meters, and the performance is pretty good--AND it fits in my 8.5" parking garage.   I think you could do the same thing with Hamsticks or their clones--add a cap hat and use, for instance, a 12meter hamstick on 15meters.   Worth a try!  GL!

My newest "Hamstick" antenna is at least a half-dozen years old, and maybe newer ones are different.   But the issue of not letting the whip too far into the fiberglass body of the antenna always used to be keeping the end of the whip out of the loading-coil part of the antenna.   You see the wire lazily wound around the shaft of the antenna from the bottom up?  And then there's a section where the wire is closewound?  That is, most of the antenna's length has the wire loosely wrapped, windings maybe a half-inch or an inch apart, and there's the inductor, where the wire is closely wound, with the wraps touching each other. 

Well, the issue with older Hamsticks and their imitators is that, if the end of the whip is physically too close to that closewound inductor, it can cause Bad Things--heating etc.   

So with a Hamstick style antenna, you should always check and make sure the end of the whip is ABOVE the closewound part of the antenna.

BTW, it may be different for you, but I have NEVER had good results from a mag-mount HF antenna mount unless I also ran a good braid from the antenna mount's grounding point to the sheet metal of the car.

73 and good luck getting on HF from the car!

I don't have a good photo of one of my homebrew cap hats, but here's a bad photo:

  http://www.duke.edu/~kuzen001/201106caphat5350lr.JPG

So far they've all been made with either 3 or 2 pieces of brass rod, typically 12" long and crossing in the middle.  They're soldered on to the ends of the whips.  Light brass wire is attached to each tip; I've also built a few that had two circles of brass wire connecting the rods.   K0BG's website gave me a lot of information on cap hats for mobile antennas, but the shoddy homebrewing is entirely my own.  :-)   I've been very impressed at how much help a cap hat can give a mobile whip.   Using a 15m Hustler resonator on 20meters, I needed nearly 40" of whip above the top of the resonator.  With a cap hat, I only need 6-9" of whip (don't recall exactly) and performance seems at least as good, possibly better.   I'm definitely a fan of capacity hats for mobiles!

Well, John Deere (or whoever sponsors the DXpedition) would need to give me a new riding mower as well as a box of HF gear.  :-)

When I bought that particular mower, I was a bit disappointed that it was in the McLaren F1 colors at the time.  Something like the old John Player livery would have been more handsome.  :-)

Sorry; this is getting increasingly off topic.  :-/

This isn't exactly "mobile," but it's semi-close.  This is what I've been playing with, the last week:

   http://www.duke.edu/~kuzen001/lawnmower.htm


My next step will be to see if MTD or John Deere will sponsor a DXpedition for me.  :-) Maybe go to Palmyra, "lawnmower portable."  :-)

Chris, not only is there one particular formula that works precisely, but any given antenna may have slightly different characteristics from one mounting place to another.  So IMO the best thing to do is adjust it with your analyzer in the place you're going to use it.   You're lucky to have an analyzer--I just bought one about 2 years ago, and I was amazed I'd been hamming for 20 years without one.  :-)  They make tuning mobile HF antennas SO much easier!

I thought the very same thing, this afternoon, driving home from work:  Some morons were playing recorded music and sending CW over some net on 20m phone.  What sort of brain-damaged human trash thinks it's acceptable to do THAT just because you don't like the people using the frequency? 

Interesting!  I'll take a look for the book.  I worked John a couple of months ago, caught him on 20m phone while I was in the car.  He was signing HI3/KL7JR ... which is not a call you hear every day.  ;-)

I wish I remembered who said this:

"A rare one is one your pal has that you don't have yet.  A VERY rare one is one you have confirmed that your pal doesn't have yet." 

   

I've never tried it, but my guess is that EMT isn't going to work--it's not very strong, and making a vertical pole isn't what the stuff is designed for.   The first bit of stress will make it crumple, is my guess.

You might have a look at the 4-foot poles, I've seen both fiberglass and aluminum, that are mil-surplus and are sold by magazine ads and at hamfests.  I got 12 of those for $30 at a hamfest a few months ago.  The ends fit together.  I've got a 15-meter ground plane on a half-dozen of those in my back yard.  They work great for this sort of thing!

I've had ham plates for 20 years, and when people ask at all, they ask "What does 'ac4rd' stand for?"  If I explain about FCC licenses and callsigns, they almost always say, "Oh, it's a CB radio thing?" 

Sad to say, but it seems that almost nobody I run into in the non-ham world has much understanding of what amateur radio is, except for the very few who have relatives who are or were hams.

My wife was hit head-on about a half-dozen years ago; her Honda Accord was totaled.  Engine dropped out on the ground as designed, instead of being pushed into the passenger compartment.  The front end and part of one side was a mass of tangled shards.  My wife had a few bruises from the seatbelt and airbag, no other injuries at all.  Amazing.

When we went shopping for a replacement for her Accord, the ONLY car we looked at was another Accord, because of the way it handled the crash.  (The car *I* drive may or may not be a deathtrap, of course--I have no idea.  But my *wife* is going to be in a safe car!)   

The Fit is a traditional gas-engined car, right?   I've got a 706 installed in a 2006 Scion xB, which is slightly larger than your Fit, I think.   The front panel is on the dash below the OEM radio, the body is under the passenger's seat, and the HF antenna mount (the one I use currently, though there are a few others here and there on the outside of the car) is at bumper level.  There's a "towing eye" that screws into the frame, on the xB, and I've got the antenna mount bolted to the towing eye.   Photos if you want them.

There are also a BUNCH of good photos of mobile HF installations on the K0BG website, if you're looking for ideas!

Tomb18, one other bit of opinion:  if you like working DX, the big contests are a GREAT way to increase your country count!  Lots of stations will be on the air, and those serious contesters WANT every single QSO they can get, so they'll work to hear you and work to get you into the log.  Contests can be a lot of fun for the competition--but if you like DX, they're fantastic opportunities to log some new countries.  Someone else said some of the big multi-multi contest stations aren't good at QSLing, but some of them definitely ARE, and it seems like a lot of them use LOTW these days, too.   Give it a try!  73!

Yesterday I found the official website of JHS #33 of NYC.  Didn't see anything on it about a student ham-radio club, though it was a pretty feeble attempt at a website, very little of interest IMO.  But I used the "contact us" page to ask if they had a student ham-radio club and if John Fairclough was associated with it.   Haven't heard anything from them yet.