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Because the ground line of the power supply is isolated from the plus and minus 13.8 vDC lines that provide power to your radio or DC power distribution box.

The Objective Is To Have A Larger Bonding Cable Between Equipment To Keep Electrical / Lightning Surges From Damaging Radio Equipment - Keeping It In The Grounding Single Point Network.

Of you do not have an adequate metallic surface then it is imperative that you use a non-groundplane antenna. They will perform very well if you go with a Laird or Larsen.

All three antennae shown are removable. The front two are on NMO mounts.

So why isn't the tower bonded to the electrical ground through the coax which is attached to the chassy which is grounded through the ground line in the power outlet? No matter how much you ground anything because of the resistance of wire they'll always be at a different potential?

An antenna not designed for the frequency you're transmitting on could reflect power back into your radio instead of radiating it out as radio waves. If the reflected power is too high (high SWR), the radio will either scale back its power to avoid harm, or become damaged. A CB antenna is made for 26MHz, and a GMRS antenna is made for 465MHz. The difference is great enough the reflected energy will probably be quite high.

I continue to have the same problem with accessing the forum. The forum won't permit a photo of the screen shot displaying the error message.

Obviously, we'll do some testing with my antenna before she spends the money for one. There's no doubt about that, but we have to work with what we have. Modern vehicles have so many non-metallic parts that it's often hard to find a decent ground plane. Literally the only ground plane on my truck is the roof. The hood is fiberglass. I'm going to install an NMO on the roof at some point; I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I use to run a CB antenna on a metal toolbox that was mounted to a homemade wooden flatbed. The tool box was definitely not big enough for a proper ground plane for CB/11m but it still worked. A few guys run a Yaesu ATAS antenna or other types of screw driver antennas on the bed rails of their trucks and Gladiators without issue. HF definitely needs a bigger ground plane than VHF or UHF.

Couple quick pics. Ignore the body damage.. it my offroader.

That's great if it works for him. All antennas, even the no ground plane antennas, will benefit from a ground plane. That being said. Plenty of ground plane antennas still work with a less than optimal ground plane underneath.

I used the Diamond SG7900 on my truck where the ground plane is practically nonexistent and it works fine. I bought it because DX Engineering said it didn't need a ground plane, and then found out it is actually a ground plane antenna, but I'm not going to argue with success. It's one of the options I'll suggest to my friend.

Thanks! I feared that might be the case.

Those are all useful options. I'll show them to the owner.

One of the reasons I always go with an NMO mount is so I can remove the antenna for car washes. Full disclosure: It's not my vehicle; I'm helping a friend figure out what to do.

Definitely don't overcomplicate things. Either use the existing fuses where they are at or move them closer to the battery. I have yet to burn up any wires or blow fuses even when talking for a long time with any of my 50 watt dual band and GMRS radios. And I run them on high power all of the time.

I wouldn't put 2 fuses, but i would relocate the one that came with it to no more than 18 inches from the battery. The closer, the better.

Jeezus... Stop trying to over-complicate everything and use the damn fuses that came with it.

I am installing the new Btech GMRS 50PRO in my truck. A general rule of thumb is to install fuses about 6 inches from the connection to the battery. However, the fuses on the radio I got come hardwired six inches from the radio and not on the extended cable it comes with. My question, is do I add extra fuses in line next to the battery on top of the fuses that come with the unit, or do I just use the fuses that come with the unit itself, despite them being so far away from the car battery?

Here's three options for the Jeep. The lip mount on the hood is a Laird Lip-Mount and Phantom antenna, and does not need anything special. This Phantom antenna is used for UHF DMR. The mount on the driver's side near the A pillar is a Laird non- ground plane for VHF and the mount is a Rugged Radios mount. The glass-mount on the rear glass is a Larsen and used for UHF. I get great performance with the glass-mount antenna. All of these options can apply to the Gladiator. The Midland antennae are great if you are just transmitting on GMRS freqs. If you are transmitting on a mix of GMRS and Business Radio Service freqs use the Lairds and Larsen antennae, do use any of the HAM crap stuff.

Fiber or fabric roof. That's not an option. For a fiber roof, mounting some type if reflector for a ground plane doesn't work. The material is too thick for it to be inside and it's ribbed up top, which adds a whole new level of aggravation.

If you are mounting an antenna that large, i would drill a hole in the top of the bed rail over the tail light and hard-mount a UHF mount. (Or NMO). The only other option would be to use a lip mount on the hood. Something like this... ot the Diamond version. https://www.cometantenna.com/product/coment-hd-5m-heavy-duty-rs-840-lip-mount-w-dlx-166-coax-gold-uhf-conns/ I'll take a couple pictures of mine in about an hour and show you what I have (both) for GMRS and Amateur Radio

If you do choose a ground plane antenna, mount it to the center of the roof. That’s the single most effective place to mount an antenna, but it brings with it other challenges: is the roof metal? If not you’ll need a sheet of metal to provide the ground plane. Is the roof strong enough to withstand the vibration of the mount and antenna? Do you go through car washes? Etc.

i used a cowl mount on my JK that worked well. Check out Cool-Tech, i belive that have one for the Gladiator.

I used to use ARC but i lost my account access when i retired 3 years ago.. Now i use a KML version of this data base for repeater access info etc, which also works great on the mobile app.