trunk lip or magnet mount?

[Hot Hands]

I've decided I want a wilson antenna.... but which i'm not sure. I think the wilson 500 with the trunk lip mount would look and possible perform the best, but the lil will magnet mount on the center of my roof is the cheapest solution. which would perform better? a 3 foot on the roof, or a 5 foot on the trunk? i plan to run a 100w amp, which both will have no problem handling that. is the performance gain worth the extra $30-$40 by getting the 500 on the trunk?

[Hot Hands]

also, the wilson antenna website says the 500 will have a 20-25% performance increase over the lil will, but will that be true even if the 500 is on the trunk as opposed to the lil will on the roof?

[Hot Hands]

i did some researching, i thought i saw the 500 with a trunk lip mount, but it turns out it's only the 1000 that will do the trunk lip mount... so magnet mount both ways, 500 on the trunk or lil will on the roof?

[MoJo]

PM me and we'll get you hooked up....

['Doc]

The 'bad' part about trunk lip mounts is that hard bend the feed line has to take to get around the trunk lip. That's almost always the first place to start looking for problems. If you use a mag-mount you're basically looking at the same sort of thing with getting that feed line inside the car. Not quite as 'bad', but still not so good. If you stay below something like 50 watts, and use the absolut shortest piece of it you can, RG-174 makes that 'bend' better. That stuff is the pits though, not much good for feed line at all, and I certainly would not recommend it's use, but it's possible if you are very desperate. There's some difference between those two antennas, but probably not as much as you might think. Neither is the 'best' you could do, but they certainly are not the worst either. No matter how you look at it, fiberglass is more 'fragile' than steel. So if you anticipate it hitting anything, I think the steel antenna would be a better choice from the 'destructive' point of view. You're the one who'z gonna have to live with it so pick the one you think you can live the easiest with. If you have the option, drill the dang hole! That's always better than either of those other two mounts.
- 'Doc

[jessejamesdallas]

i did some researching, i thought i saw the 500 with a trunk lip mount, but it turns out it's only the 1000 that will do the trunk lip mount... so magnet mount both ways, 500 on the trunk or lil will on the roof?

Do yourself a favor...And get the Wilson 5000 Magnet Mount...Much better antenna over the lil Wilson, and the 500, plus it has a better coax.

lil Wilson, the Wilson 500, and the Wilson 1000 all have RG 58 coax...Only the Wilson 5000 comes with RG 8/U...

Roof Mounted would be the best option, but they work just fine on trunk lids...(provided the trunk lid is metal, and not plastic)

[SmallTruckBigRadio]

I agree with Doc.

I also agree with jessejamesdallas, as usual (somebody should make him their antenna company rep).

I would further say that the Wilson 1000 trunk lip mount would be better than the lil Wil on the roof.

What kind of sedan do you have?

[coondog]

i did some researching, i thought i saw the 500 with a trunk lip mount, but it turns out it's only the 1000 that will do the trunk lip mount... so magnet mount both ways, 500 on the trunk or lil will on the roof?

Do yourself a favor...And get the Wilson 5000 Magnet Mount...Much better antenna over the lil Wilson, and the 500, plus it has a better coax.

lil Wilson, the Wilson 500, and the Wilson 1000 all have RG 58 coax...Only the Wilson 5000 comes with RG 8/U...

Roof Mounted would be the best option, but they work just fine on trunk lids...(provided the trunk lid is metal, and not plastic)

i agree with this reply.

in the long run the 5000 will be best because you may never know you might want to get a bigger amp to run with the big dogs.
roof mount would be ideal also with this ant. because you won"t be so directional the other way.in the center of roof your signal is going all around you unlike the trunk lid where it will be like fanning out behind and to the sides of you.

i wish i had that diagram that shows this directional thing with roof,trunk,and mirror mounts.reflect and ground plane comes into effect also.

['Doc]

Don't make the mistake of getting too hung up on this directional thingy. It isn't really that important, and/or very directional at all. Some, sure, but not enough to make any practical difference, especially if that antenna is moving around and never in the exact same place a lot.
Antenna 'groundplane's are very easy to misunderstand. Very simply, it's better to have 'it' directly under an antenna rather than to one side of an antenna. Unless there's a particular reason for it being sort of off to one side. I have one antenna that would work better if it were centered over the truck. That's just not going to happen, just too impractical. It will work just dandy where it is, to one side of the truck. Would there be a difference if it were centered? Some, but not enough to make it worth all the trouble of doing it that way, at least to me. Why worry about it too much?
- 'Doc

[Candyman]

Just a thought about magnet mount Wilsons.
I have a small car and tried to mount a Wilson 5000 Magnet Mount on the roof, it worked pretty good until I hit about 70 mph. The only thing that saved the antenna from complete destruction was the coax. The metal on some cars is so thin that the magnetic force between the antenna and the roof is insufficient. Let me tell you that I ran a Wilson 5000 on top of a full size Dodge van and never had a problem, but of course the metal is a much heavier gauge. When the Wilson 5000 was on the roof of the Dodge it was really difficult to remove, but on my newer car I could easly remove it. Just be sure to check your own application, you may be perfectly OK.
BTW
I drilled a hole in the middle of the trunk and body mounted a Wilson 5000 and am now upgrading to a Gator stick, good luck with your choice!

[coondog]

Don't make the mistake of getting too hung up on this directional thingy. It isn't really that important, and/or very directional at all. Some, sure, but not enough to make any practical difference, especially if that antenna is moving around and never in the exact same place a lot.
Antenna 'groundplane's are very easy to misunderstand. Very simply, it's better to have 'it' directly under an antenna rather than to one side of an antenna. Unless there's a particular reason for it being sort of off to one side. I have one antenna that would work better if it were centered over the truck. That's just not going to happen, just too impractical. It will work just dandy where it is, to one side of the truck. Would there be a difference if it were centered? Some, but not enough to make it worth all the trouble of doing it that way, at least to me. Why worry about it too much?
- 'Doc

good post there Doc.

when i first got into cb communicatios the tech that helped me out explained and showed me the directional thing to me and he stood by trying to make sure your ant. is in the center of roof.i believed that was the law with placement of antennas on mobeals for great tx and rx.

i have experienced over the years with rx with different friends that have there antennas mounted in different areas on there mobeal.

center mount(mag or hard mount) -my rx stays(meter and ear) the same with there tx.

trunk mount(mag or hard mount)-following them my rx and there tx is great but if there comming at me it is lessoned,good but not as good as folowing them.

no experience with miror mounts,friends don"t use them.

this has been experienced at like 15 to 20 miles apart.

will add that this experience was with 102"s,Wilsons,and Predator 10K"s.

one question on the 50 ohm rule, with me being a center roof(hard or mag)fan and allways making sure with my analizer that i"m at the 50 ohm mark is it possible to get that with a mirror or trunk mount? to me it just doesn"t seem possible(never tried it)or is it possible or maybe it just doesn"t come into play?

this forum is cool,here"s a question i hope that will be answered so i"ll be enlighten on the subject

keep up the great posts Doc,i surely for one appreciate it.you and others here have helped me tremendously since i"ve been here :D