Antenna & install follow up:
87 Ranger: I said before, I use a piece of flat plastic to stabilize the whip. In this instance, it’s a piece of 1/8 inch aluminum diamond plate. It’s folded 90° to the inside of the bed, and that’s where it’s screwed into the bed top. I split a small piece of rubber tubing, and put it over the edge, to keep the antenna from grounding out. There are two holes drilled out near that, with a zip tie in a loop. The loop is actually inside the antenna, with just a tiny little break away red zip tie holding it to the loop.
That’s my master technician partially in the picture to the right.
F250: less elegant, but I have a long zip tie looped around the bracket that holds the cap down inside, and again a small zip tie on that to hold the antenna from wobbling
97 Ranger, the antennas: Note the base-loaded whip. That’s for the small radio down by the brake control. You can’t have both on at once or when you key one, it’ll blow your eardrums out from the other. I learned that.
I get a lot of folks asking me where I bought the antennas with the alternating red and white bands on the top. They came from my antenna junk pile accumulated over the years in the shed of miracles.
I painted them with white rustoleum and then with red rustoleum, simply masking out the lines on top. You can paint the fiberglass antennas any color you want, as long as the paint does not have any metallic component (like a silver or bronze metallic).
I mounted them behind the cab a little below the door handles. Only one is connected, but the transmission is still deficient. Asking around and reading stuff, it was pointed out that the headache rack on the truck is aluminum, and due to conductivity and the design, that will interfere with the signal even more than just the sheet metal of the cab. I’m planning on redoing them, but I haven’t figured out exactly how yet. There are other modifications that take priority on the “Road Ranger” for the 2026 season….
Here’s the final on the Cobra 129LTD Classic set up, The beaded chain is a tug for the air horns. Note, also the little aluminum strap that helps hold the assembly up. I made that, and it runs up over the clip that holds the sunvisor in the center, due to the weight.
For the temp GE, I made an L-shaped plate that tilts backwards, and I secured it underneath the plastic center shroud that holds the drink holders and the stick shift boot, and mounted my brake control on that. I don’t like them under the dashboard or somewhere else, and by making this custom mount, it’s right at my fingertips while my hand is on the shift if I have to hit the trailer brakes. Since it’s a temporary, I just zip tied the GE radio on the other side of that plate. The mic just sits on the hump in the little hole that’s left.
And I have to do a big, giant shout out to
@sgtsandman, and another buddy in the ham radio shop near me. I really don’t know a whole lot about these other than what I’ve tinkered with over the years, certainly when it comes to how the antennas work best. He’s the guru for TRS, and he pointed me to a lot of what I’ve done and what I’m going to do. And again, I always talk to the local shops before I do something crazy. Anybody who works in a CB or ham radio shop isn’t doing it for the pay, they’re doing it because they love playing with the radios, so they’re always a good source of help.
Again, just conversation
