Off Roading

[WRXB215]

38 minutes ago, nokones said:

Yah, I know, the Jeep has horrible numbers but I rather own and drive a Jeep than any Asian or British car.

The Tundra is actually made it Texas. 

[nokones]

39 minutes ago, WRXB215 said:

The Tundra is actually made it Texas. 

It's still an Asian car

[WRXB215]

1 hour ago, nokones said:

It's still an Asian car

Asian product built in US: Tundra

US product built in Asia: Your radios

[WRKW566]

Tundra is a good product regardless of where it is built. I am happy it is built here in Texas. As for myself, I drive a German designed car which is built in Mexico. Oddly, the parts manufactured in Mexico seem to be the best parts of the car. Ten years and 150,000 miles later the thing is still running but it's getting a little shabby as the interior is falling apart. My brother has an "Asian" pickup truck. It is older and has more miles on it but it looks and acts like a new car. My only hold to my decision is the 38mpg average mileage over the VW's lifetime. I do have a bicycle that was built in Detroit, it's just as good as my Japanese and Chinese bikes... abet it cost a little more for what it is.

[SteveShannon]

Jeep is owned by Stellantis, a Dutch corporation. So it’s literally a Dutch car company building Jeeps in Toledo, Ohio from 70% US parts and 30% foreign parts.  
 

[WRKW566]

Rough guess. A new Jeep is not cheap. Upgrading a Jeep to meet the off-road requirements of the "average" user is also not cheap. Same thing can be said about Toyota. Places like Barnes and others here in the US that sell Jeep upgrade components don't sell junk and the parts are not cheap. You can buy parts from over seas but you have to be careful. "It's easy to buy expensive tools but it's hard to buy good cheap tools." This can be said for aftermarket parts as well.

Comparing new unmodified vehicles for various uses and functions can be documented. Comparing Jeep to Toyota after modification is much harder to do. A poorly chosen replacement part can cause a problem on any vehicle. Lumping the worth or usefulness of these vehicles into brand names -after- they have been modified is a useless activity. The choices of a single person never weigh equal to a room full of professional engineers. Making a modification to a vehicle is hard. Many smart people have gone over the thing with experience and skill and thinking you can "improve" something without unforeseen consequences is hubris.

Like they say in the bicycle world, you ride what you have and you look for better. Another saying is, "It's good enough for who it's for." If you have the budget to scratch-build an off-road vehicle you will spend 100's of thousand dollars in both vehicle components and equipment to assemble the thing. (Matt's Off Road Recovery, Fab Rats, Merlin... those guys)

Let's go bash the Ford v Chevy thing for awhile and then start a debate about Lucas electrical wiring. A follow-up on how VW's are a German plot to poison the World and top it all off with a pilgrimage to Ralph Nader's tomb to whip the Corvair some more.

[nokones]

After posting my test results on the performance/evaluation of the Firestik II antennae about 2-3 weeks ago, and of course there were forum members that said the Firestik II antennae where one of the worst antennae and the placement of the antenna on my Dutch-Corporation Owned American made Non Asian Wrangler Rubi was also one of the worst locations, and that I should be using a NMO Trunk Lip Mount clipped to the rear edge of the Hood at the cowl, and a C27 base load antenna, for better performance results in the Farz. 

Well, I decided to bite into that carrot and I purchased two Antenna Specialist/Antenex/Laird/T E Connectivity C27 Base Load antennae and the NMO Trunk Lip-Mount and I conducted my Farz test today identical to the test as I did with the two Firestiks.  I ran the same route and used the test point locations.  The transmitting and the receiving vehicles, radios, noise floor level were identical, as the previous test.  The C27 antennae were tuned and the VSWRs were in the very low 1's. 

Today's results revealed that the Firestik II antenna outperformed the C27 base load antennas.  Just to recap the test with the Firestiks, I was able to have readable communication at 2.25 miles in the AM mode and 3.25 miles in the FM mode.  With the C27 antennae, the AM mode revealed readable communication up to the 1.25 miles and the FM mode revealed readable communication up to 2.5 miles.

Guess what my Jeep Creep friends, I will be using the following antenna for my CB Radio communications:

because this did not work to be the best:

[WRKW566]

In ye old days, Firesticks always out performed base loaded antennas. Sure, you can mount one in a bad place and they do poorly but location for location, anywhere on the vehicle a Firestick would always do better than a base loaded coil. Best location of all time was smack-dab in the center of the roof of my Suburban. The young do stupid things. : )

This comes from doing "CB" in the 1970's and later again (I apparently can't learn better) in the 80's. I admit, I had forgotten about the Firestick things for a very long time.

That light bar may be too close to the base load.

[nokones]

1 hour ago, WRKW566 said:

In ye old days, Firesticks always out performed base loaded antennas. Sure, you can mount one in a bad place and they do poorly but location for location, anywhere on the vehicle a Firestick would always do better than a base loaded coil. Best location of all time was smack-dab in the center of the roof of my Suburban. The young do stupid things. : )

This comes from doing "CB" in the 1970's and later again (I apparently can't learn better) in the 80's. I admit, I had forgotten about the Firestick things for a very long time.

That light bar may be too close to the base load.

Yah, the NMO mount could be too close to the light bar. But it doesn't matter anymore. The Jeep is a poor radio antenna platform.

 

[WRKW566]

That sir, is a great picture! And from that angle, the base load was no where near that light bar. Shows how little time I have spent looking at Jeeps. It is clear in the first image that the mount is outboard of the hood hinge and the light bar is inboard. Plenty of room there.

(good brand of light bar too!)

[Davichko5650]

18 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Jeep is owned by Stellantis, a Dutch corporation. So it’s literally a Dutch car company building Jeeps in Toledo, Ohio from 70% US parts and 30% foreign parts.  
 

I'll keep running my old Exploder. Proudly assembled in Canada with world sourced parts. Can count on one finger the number of times a Jeep pulled me out of a stuck. Can count on both hands the number of times I've winched out Jeeps from stucks!  Mostly I run solo, and I have had to winch myself out a couple times from mud or deep snow, but it keeps on keepin' on.

[WRXB215]

I know LEDs are a source of RFI but I'm pretty sure @nokones didn't have them turned on during his test. So, as far as I'm concerned, the test is still valid and the Firestick wins. Good info. I haven't bought a CB yet but I keep circling back around to the idea. If I ever do, I will likely get a Firestick for it.

[nokones]

31 minutes ago, WRXB215 said:

I know LEDs are a source of RFI but I'm pretty sure @nokones didn't have them turned on during his test. So, as far as I'm concerned, the test is still valid and the Firestick wins. Good info. I haven't bought a CB yet but I keep circling back around to the idea. If I ever do, I will likely get a Firestick for it.

No, the Lightbar wasn't turned on because I had to reason to light up the roadway during the day and the light bar would not have had any affect doing so.

[WRUQ357]

I did a charity ride today put on by our local Sheriff's. First time and I was really interested to see who showed up and if there was any radio traffic. It was a mix of on road only and off-road. There was a lot of UTV'S and Jeeps, with Broncos and Tacos, and other rigs thrown in. I was surprised that there was no radio traffic, other than I heard some people with the event. No gmrs or cb traffic amongst the attendees that I could tell. I wish I would have thought to put my radio on scan. I did hand my friend on of my uv5r's, and we stayed on channel 16.