Hello Folk,
Would like a VHF / UHF Antenna mounted on a Car Roof Rail or Cross Bar.
There appears to be no conductivity between the roof rails and the car body work at all.
The vehicle is a Ford Kuga Mark 2 and I am contemplating either using a Mag Mount or find a way of getting
a ground to the antenna.
Short of taking an earth strap to the antenna mount is there any suggesstions out there?
Keith
73 all.

A metal plate between the rails of the roof rack with the antenna mounted centrally?
In the past I used thin aluminium, fire backing plates, where roofs were non conductive or impossible to connect to.

Cheers

Tony

Some end fed mobile colinear antennas even dual band VHF/UHF don't require a solid metal ground plane beneath them, I have an old Comet branded one here that will work equally well on either a chucked on mag mount, a metal bonded and thus grounded roof rack or gutter mount suitable socket, or even floating with just the coax supply ground on an isolated from major car ground roof/gutter rack mount.
Never seen that much difference in it's performance or measured SWR however over the many years of use it has been mounted in whatever fashion suited the of the day particular vehicle installation.
Now mobile HF antennas might be a different thing completely, but that old Comet dual band mobile seems to be none to plussed about what metal is sat beneath it and grounded to it.

Short of taking an earth strap to the antenna mount is there any suggestion's out there?

this is what I had to do on the van as the conductivity was there but not good enough for me to be happy, I also ran a copper strip to the base of the hf antenna to maker double sure.

Bob.

Thank you for your replies ...
Fitted this set up Mag Mount with a 3 Radial attachment for VHF /UHF
For me time will tell may improve on reception.
Has anyone tried similar.