Sponsored

Grounding/bonding question for Ham radio antenna installation

Captain Skip

Well-Known Member
First Name
Skip
Joined
Oct 13, 2020
Threads
54
Messages
345
Reaction score
489
Location
New Hampshire
Vehicle(s)
2020 Wrangler JL Sport S
Occupation
Happily retired
I just bought a CoolTech antenna mount that uses one of the existing side bolts on the cowl. Mounted it yesterday and checked with my multimeter. There is continuity between the mount and the ground points on the JL so that's a good thing. I was thinking about adding ground straps to bond the hood to the ground also to improve the ground plane effect of the antenna. But, the hood is aluminum and I'm not sure if I'm going to cause galvanic corrosion by adding a ground strap. I read the following bulletin from Ford regarding their aluminum pickup trucks. http://www.k0bg.com/images/antenna/Q-222R1.pdf and before I go drilling or attaching anything I wanted to check with any of you who have added Ham, GMRS or CB antennas to your JL on a front mount. Did you bond the hood or is there enough contact with just the hinges? I didn't want to scrape any paint off the hood to see if there was continuity yet.
Sponsored

 

Vahdettin

Well-Known Member
First Name
Vahdettin
Joined
Sep 6, 2018
Threads
9
Messages
49
Reaction score
31
Location
Seattle, WA
Vehicle(s)
2018 JLU
Older jeeps with hood lights or some other electrical accessory had a ground strap connecting the hood to the main body right near one of the hinges. But new ones don't, or at least I've never seen one but I also don't see hood lights anymore. I would say it's not grounded simply because it doesn't need to be.

If you really wanted to use that large surface area as a ground plane, why not get one of those large sheets of soft copper and mold it up between the hood and the underside protector? I don't think it would add much to omni-directional strength because it's so off center of your antenna but better than nothing.
 
 



Top