You are going to have to go up there.  Sorry.

I suggest dumping all the ancient twinlead.  It has been out there very, very long-in hot and cold, rain, etc.  

Try fresh coax...it's not very expensive for CATV use, not like, say LMR 400 .

The new UHF antennas are smaller and easier to handle.  One small corner reflector style yagi or bowtie is tiny compared to the old antennas.

You probably don't need an amp.  I'm 40 miles outside NYC and feed three HD sets Off the Air without any amplification with no problems.

If you get some signal off rabbit ears, even a marginal rooftop antenna will get you lock.

Total cost should not be very high-and your existing antenna is clearly amortized.

Icom 706 in a 03 330i.  I use a trunk lid mount clipped to the passenger side at the rear of the lid.  This is grounded to the trunk lid.  The head of the 706 is mounted to a wood block, which with some rubber, force fits into the ashtray.  It fits cleanly (very sano) in the nook between the shifter and the dash.


I use a 1/2 wave antenna for vhf and uhf.  HF is served (sorta) by a Wilson 1000 mag mount antenna, which gives me good low SWR on 10 meters and good listening for CB 19 for road work. While a general, I've not yet put a hamstick on the car.

The 706 mounts over the battery tray.  The only holes in the car are the three holes drilled in the plastic tray over the battery.  The Wilson, while a magmount, has not scratched the paint as I use a plumbing seal to protect the paint. (home depot, 49 cents, cut to fit).

I'm wondering how to do an HF antenna....considering licence plate mount and a hamstick.  10meters is dead now.

Best overheard QSO

One day, whilst tuning around, heard two freeband ops make contact somewhere around 27.475.  After some discussion, they qsy-ed to 28.350, where they continued the qso, with call signs !

Any opening will find many suspiciously clean and powerful signals in the freeband.

Why bother ?  

I have used plumbing seal from Home depot.  It is a red rubber sold in sheets.  I've had a mag mount Wilson 1000 cut to 10m, a big 5 footer, and have not scratched my car paint in three years.  Cheap and good.

troll, troll, troll.......

Clarifiers:

The FCC, when they went to 40 channels, tightened up the type acceptance rules for CB's to quell the horrible TVI issues.  One other thing they did was to lock the transmitter side of the clarifier so you could not make easy changes and get 10 kc out of it, allowing all those "extra channels".  Indeed, many years ago, I stared at my (23 channel) Cobra 139 schematic, and figured out which circut adjusted "range", and it magically opened up the  "a" channels and Channel 22b.  We spent a lot of time on "0" when all the other channels were hetrodyne hell.

What this did was to kill SSB use in any legal way.  Station A talks to Station B, but what if Station C or D want to join ?  If everyone has locked TX with slightly different frequency, you get real tired real fast readjusting the clarifier for each speaker.

As to 6m, it is either dead or hopping, no in between.  The ionosphere is either on or off-I'm setting up a loop to play on 6 soon.

Clarifiers:

The FCC, when they went to 40 channels, tightened up the type acceptance rules for CB's to quell the horrible TVI issues.  One other thing they did was to lock the transmitter side of the clarifier so you could not make easy changes and get 10 kc out of it, allowing all those "extra channels".  Indeed, many years ago, I stared at my (23 channel) Cobra 139 schematic, and figured out which circut adjusted "range", and it magically opened up the  "a" channels and Channel 22b.  We spent a lot of time on "0" when all the other channels were hetrodyne hell.

What this did was to kill SSB use in any legal way.  Station A talks to Station B, but what if Station C or D want to join ?  If everyone has locked TX with slightly different frequency, you get real tired real fast readjusting the clarifier for each speaker.

As to 6m, it is either dead or hopping, no in between.  The ionosphere is either on or off-I'm setting up a loop to play on 6 soon.

I need a basic, LEGAL, AM only radio for one of my vehicles.  Does anyone have any experience with the new small CB radios that they could share ?  I am not interested in any freeband nonsense, and the radio is going to remain fully Part 95 legal.  I want to buy new.

Who has the best receive section ?  Midland and Cobra have new small rigs-any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

Casey
K2FIX

I suggest the Icom 2100.  Bulletproof rig, slightly confusing programming but OK once you figure out the buttons, and very good for IMD...better than my 706 Mk 2 G by a large margin.

A simple FM box, unless going multiband multimode, is my mobile suggestion.  Looking down is BAD.

73

That smell from the big outbuilding near the house, is the dead horse that is still being beaten.

Would someone please bury the horse ?  The flies are horrible !

This one's simple for a ham.

How far are your HDTV transmitters ?  Can you hit a repeater from your home which is near one of the HDTV transmitters with moderate or low power ?

You will need a UHF antenna, but that's the extent of it.    I use an antenna one size bigger than needed for my area, as I use it for three sets without a preamp.

Ground everything !  I can work 2m at 100 watts and not cause any issues with my HDTV.

The current Radio Shack Fringe antenna is not very expensive, and has a big UHF section.  If you want smaller, you can go with a UHF only antenna, if you don't need VHF.  In my area, I have gone to the HD feed for all channels except one.

The easiest way to get HDTV is to get it from the air...I've done it this way, and via Cable TV companies, and the best, non compressed picture comes off the air.  The cost of the antenna and coax is amortized VERY quickly compared to the cost of the "Digital Tier".

Once you get used to "normal" colors, not NTSC color, and the clarity of HDTV, it gets real tough to watch "blur-0-vision".

K2FIX
Casey

I'm really surprised at the flaming of Icom going on here.

In today's day and age, you must expect that the first production run of ANY major product is going to be buggy, and YOU are doing the R&D.  It should not be that way, but it is.  I don't care if it is a ham radio, a Mercedes Benz, or HDTV.  Today's consumer electronics are so complex that bugs are a fact of life.

I have a 706 Mk 2 G.  It has served me well for VHF/UHF and for extensive shortwave listening, along with 11 m highway reports.  If you look at the old postings for the first runs of the 706, they look and sound the same.  In time, the 7000 will be "fixed", and the second version will be rock solid.  With the 706, frequency coverage and power increased.

Half of this hobby throws money at the "latest and greatest" while the other half saves diligently to buy a 2 meter HT.  If you are the early adopter, you must expect some problems, even if you spent 1700 on a radio.  Every radio released has some bug.