Installed My New Dual Band Radio In My H1 Wagon!

[crank]

Hey Dudes!
Just installed my new Icom IC-2820H Dual Band radio. I'm using a MFJ- 1734 Dual Band Thru The Glass antenna on the back side window. I had the antenna laying around in the package for about 8 years or so. I thought what the heck. It gives a good SWR. The radio sits on the floor between the front seat and the dog house. With the speaker down there, it's impossible to hear anything. I bought a Radio Shack speaker and sat it up on the far left dash. Fits great with no mounting. Just a small piece of double sided tape to keep it from sliding around.
I need to do some programming to load some of the local repeaters and such.



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[3Hummers]

I need to get my 8800 mounted inthe truck again. I have been using my handheld.

 

[crank]

All,
Has anyone had any experience with the Dual Band MFJ-1734 (glass mount) antenna?
As you can see in the picture, my glass mount antenna has a "Ground Plane Hook" that goes under the coax connection. I drew it in red to see it a bit better.
The instructions says word for word.... "hook should be facing with ball at the top going with the coax connection". Ok... Does that mean the Ground Plane Hook ball faces the coax run, but facing down like I have it now, or does the ball face upwards with the coax running upwards? I can't beleive the last part working. A ground plane should be sort of on the bottom, correct? I guess almost like a vertical dipole??? Doing the other way would not be enough room to mount that. I get a pretty good SWR of 1.75:1 average. I think I'm ok.
What do you all think? Am I on drugs with this?

 

[LagunaH1]

I think your setup looks fine. Your MFJ antenna is basically a small vertical dipole. The "hook" is one half of the antenna, the external whip is the other half. The fact that you send your TX power through glass will mean some amount of loss but probably no more than what you can live with.

Make sure you measure your SWR and impedance on 2 meters and on 440.

 

[crank]

Thanks LagunaH1 for the input.
Yeah I figured that was the only way that made any sense. It just didn't seem very understandable. I measured SWR on both bands (near the freqs I will mostly use) and the 70cm was a bit higher. Not too bad. It's not what I'd call a top rated antenna for DX work, but not too bad. I can hit most of the repeaters in the area and I can get some miles on simplex. It saved me from running a cable outside the vehicle. BTW, the control head has some real good 3M double sided tape. It holds under the hotest temp so far. No holes drilled.

I think your setup looks fine. Your MFJ antenna is basically a small vertical dipole. The "hook" is one half of the antenna, the external whip is the other half. The fact that you send your TX power through glass will mean some amount of loss but probably no more than what you can live with.

Make sure you measure your SWR and impedance on 2 meters and on 440.

 

[LagunaH1]

Hehe, sometimes the manuals for foreign made HAM equipment are pretty poorly translated and leaves a lot of guess work up to the user ;-)

Glad it's working well for you.

 

[M22KLARS]

Very nice! Looks like it's a perfect fit!