Jarred's comments seem to align with my experience.
I typically rove with a 1/4 wave whip for 50 MHz on the roof of my crew cab
truck. (When I stop I setup tripod masts for the beams.) I've never measured
the overall height of my truck with the 1/4 whip but expect it is approx 12
feet. The whip is fairly thin at the top and has a shock spring at the bottom
so there hasn't been any real drama the few times I have hit low hanging
branches at low speeds.
For travel on back roads with lots of low hanging branches I take the whip down
if needed. I drove more or less the whole way to the arctic circle and back
from CN89 (Vancouver) with the whip in place with no significant issues. I
even made a few QSO's from out of the way grids along the way.
The experiences of others may differ from mine.
All the best
Mark S
VE7AFZ
mark@alignedsolutions.com
604 762 4099
> On May 6, 2018, at 2:57 PM, Jarred Jackson <Jarred.Jackson@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Detrick,
>
>
>
> Great to hear you are looking to head out as a rover. My total fixed height
> is about 11’5”. I recommend staying under 12’ for backroad bridges as well as
> tree branches in residential neighborhoods. I came to this conclusion by
> reviewing previous postings on the VHFContesting archive and looking up
> posted bridge heights in my area of the state. I still pull some leaves off
> the tree when I leave my own driveway. Also note that if you have a height of
> 12’ and come up to a 11’7” bridge posting, all is not lost. Check out the
> shape of the bridge. You will likely see where you can pass under it with
> plenty of margin (though it may be in the center of the bridge or the other
> lane). The posting is for the worst case location.
>
>
>
> Good Luck and make sure you are paying attention to where your population
> areas will be (by looking at previous contest results on the ARRL website and
> rover plans posted in the VHFContesting archives).
>
>
>
> Jarred
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com> on behalf of
> Detrick Merz <detrick@merzhaus.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 3:55:40 PM
> To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Rover for June VHF
>
> Howdy Folks,
>
> A few of us are planning to try June VHF as rovers. Never done VHF
> contesting before, and obviously not rover. But it sounds like fun so we're
> going to give it a go. Planning on 6m, 2m, & 70cm. Omnis in the bed of the
> truck, some yagis for stop-and-shoot. If you care, we're planning two
> rovers (two trucks), 2 ops in each, running limited class. I'm sure we'll
> cause all kinds of problems for each other doing it this way, but we'll
> learn a lot too. And camping is more fun with friends.
>
> Yesterday I finished up the base for securing a mast into the truck bed.
> The mast tubing recesses into this base and gets guy lines from near the
> top to 4 existing anchor points in the bed.
>
> The question of the day is: how tall is too tall for going down the road?
> The truck bed is 3' off the ground, and the tubing as it is is 10'. Is 13'
> too tall, should I cut the tubing down to 8'? Should be no problem on major
> roads, but I'm wondering about tree strikes on smaller roads.
>
> Thanks for any insight,
>
> -detrick
> K4IZ
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