Greg Saunders, KJ6MC, of San Diego sent in these pictures of his '96 Jimmy installation. It's impressively done using a QMS mount on top of the Jimmy for his antenna coupler and a 9 foot whip. As Greg said in his writeup, "Low hanging trees: beware!"
Greg has mounted the QMS tightly on the roof with the straps pulled tight. A good test if you're doing this yourself is that when you yank on the straps, the car moves, not the QMS system. He had some special fabrication done to minimize noise and vibration: "Note the plastic "snout" on the front of the unit. I had the folks at TAP plastic make me a piece of black acrylic that I bolted onto the front of the box. (When first installed, the wind noise and vibration was enough to drive me insane). All leads are tied down, and slip into the cab through the back window, then under the carpet of the truck. "
His interior installation is equally impressive.
"The rig, a Kenwood TS-50, fits with room to spare in the "map" compartment that GMC so graciously put between the seats. I little bit of custom plastic work, and I'm all set. The BNC connector and switch on the cover go with a plug-in goose lamp that I use at night. The straight key is mounted on a couple of pieces of scrap metal (spray painted black) which fits into the cassette holder that came with the truck. Perfect, if you have a right-handed fist. (Which I do).".
"I purchased my SGC Smartuner™ several years ago from Amateur Electronic Supply. I determined that mobile HF was in my future one night during my daily hour-plus commute from Walnut Creek, CA to my job in the city of San Francisco. Not wanting to get out and change tap settings, or externally retune an external antenna while on the Bay Bridge, I decided on this antenna.
Originally, I used the tuner with a standard 8-foot CB stainless steel "whip" antenna. Stashed in the trunk of my '86 Chevy Nova, the SGC matched on just about any frequency, 40-10 meters. 80 and 160 was a no-go. Also disturbing was the signal reports that I was receiving...typically a 549, although better on the higher bands. Problem was, back in '92 with the sunspots dipping, the high bands were increasingly bringing in nothing but static. The answer was in installing the SG-303 continuously-loaded whip antenna.
Now, with the Smartuner in the trunk, and the SGC and the loaded whip on the bumper, the system performed like a charm. Typical reports include: "I can't believe that you're mobile" and "are you sure that you're running only 100 watts?" The only difficulties that I ever had was some arcing (during a heavy rainstorm) at the base to the mounting plate. (No, I was not using SGC's own mounting base at the time.) Also, a problem with the un-guyed antenna flapping around at highway speeds and created an occasional mis-match.
My SGC now sits atop my '96 GMC Jimmy SUV, housed in an SGC QMS box. After a spate of problems early on (caused by my improper grounding techniques), the SGC/QMS unit has worked flawlessly in the foggy weather of San Francisco as well as the blazing heat of my current QTH, Phoenix, Arizona. (Any sophisticated, multi-processor control device that can survive the summer on the roof of a car in the middle of the desert deserves respect!)".
SGC Inc., Tel:
425-746-6310 Fax: 425-746-6384
Email: sgc@sgcworld.comSGC reserves the right to change specifications, release dates and price without notice.
