Unofficial Poll: How many antennas are too many?

[George Flickinger]

This thread makes me think back hundreds of years ago when I worked the drive-thru at McDonalds, where some gentleman with a half hundred antennaes pertruding from his El Camino would come by. Some of the those antennaes extended 10 feet tall from the car and would scrape the underside of the drive thru overhang...the metal on brick made a lovely noise....anyway, I have one antennae for the scanner....GF

 

[Ben Prusia]

I have several antennas on the car during chasing season, only one is permanently mounted (trunk mount):

- 2 Radio Shack Scanner Antennas (Magnet Mount), one for the Uniden Scanner, and one for the Midland Weather Radio
- 2m Transmitter Antenna (Trunk Mount)
- TV Antenna (Magnet Mount)
- T-Mobile GPRS Antenna (Magnet Mount)

I remember seeing a car at the Burger King that I used to work at before I got fired, and they eventually closed down a short time later that had about 10 antennas on their truck, they had a Skywarn sticker on the back of their truck, so most likely a storm spotter there!

 

[Brad Emel]

Last year I chased with 2.

1- Scanner
1- 2m / 70cm for TM-G707A

This year I've added a SG7500NMO antenna also.

Might get some type of TV antenna also. Any suggestions anyone?

 

[Pat Palmer]

I won't count the stock radio antenna. I have 3 others. A large dual band, a smaller glass-mount dual band as a backup, and the huge 12 ft HF antenna. All others are part of the equipment they serve, and can't be counted as vehicle mounted..

 

[mikegeukes]

Besides the am/fm antenna that came with the car, I only use one mag mount antenna,
which I usually take off the roof, when there is a lot of lightning.

Mike

 

[Ben Engle]

i agree that you have too many antennas when there are some that arent hooked up to anything, or something very un-usefull, like your 3rd backup NOAA radio, or your 7th backup CB antenna 'just incase' like some people i have seen. If you can convince me that you've got a use for something in your vehicle with an antenna hooked up to it, its fine by me, you could have 16 for all i care.


right now for me its just a scanner antenna and a CB antenna. I havent gotten around to installing my 2M radio in the new truck yet, and the WiFi antenna is magnetic.

 

[David Drummond]

That's my deal too. If they are hooked up to something and have a purpose, then they are fine. When you start installing them just for looks and they have no use or purpose, then that's too many. IMO the sole exception to that might be a backup ham antenna. I keep one extra dual bander mounted after having one clipped off in the middle of reporting a tornadic event out in SW TX many years ago and couldn't broadcast any longer. I decided if I was going to be reporting those types of things via my ham, I wanted a backup for that.

 

[Chris Sokol]

Here is my list....

1: Dual Band Ham Radio
2: Scanner #1
3: Scanner #2
4: VHF Public Service Band #1
5: VHF Public Service Band #2
6: UHF Public Service Band
7: CB Radio
8: Cell Phone
9: Television
10: EMWIN Rebroadcast Unit
11: External GPS Antenna (new this year)
12: Sirius Satellite Radio
13: Wireless Network "Can" Antenna (experimental)
14: Omni-directional Wireless Network Antenna
15: Lightning Detector

Others come and go, depending on setup. Sometimes I will take the DirecTV system out with me. I am also adding a DirecPC setup for the vehicle, but I am still trying to figure out how exactly I want to place it on the vehicle. I also have a complete Davis Weather Monitor II weather station installed, and a full-sized Federal Streethawk Lightbar.

 

[Tom Burgess]

8) Well I have around 12 Includeing 2 Sat. dishes I have had folks ask if we track ufo's...