I fabricated this mount and went with a lip mount antenna. I will post pictures of the full install once I get a couple of more things finished up on it.
Is that a custom rail system you did as well? Your setup is cool but gets me thinking how I could pull something off on mine. Got the diamondback HD cover installed full time.I fabricated this mount and went with a lip mount antenna. I will post pictures of the full install once I get a couple of more things finished up on it.
The rail is L-track from mytee products then I bought some l-track connectors that have the bolt in them. The problem I ran into with them was that they wobbled in the track to much so I drilled and tapped a smaller diameter hole ( 1/4 x 20) all the way through the connector where the bolt goes and bought 1/4 x 20 x 1/2 set screw to go in the hole that took the play out of the connectors. Then I bent a 3/16 inch piece of aluminum in the shape you see in the picture. Taped it off and painted it. Things I will change in the future are I will get a wider piece of aluminum as only 2 of the lip mount screws are able to be used with the narrower aluminum.
Would like to see some pictures of your install.
As a diamondback owner and hopefully future general license holder I really want to see this setup. Will be pretty cool.
They're telling me that my Diamondback cover has shipped so I'm hoping that I'll receive it by this weekend and I can start working on it. For a reference, you can see how I had my HF screwdriver antenna and my UHF/VHF antennas mounted on my Diamondback cover on my new Raptor here. This worked exceptionally well.
Nice setup. Have you considered inserting a spring at the base of the antennas? If the screwdriver gets whacked it makes a pretty big lever and could mangle the tonneau.
I did in fact whack it once but it was my fault. I backed into the garage and forgot to remove the antennas. lol. The motorized mount was about 1/2 inch below cab height when all the way down. My JK in the background also had a screwdriver antenna mounted in the same fashion where when down it was a tad below roof height. I was just careful. I don't know that you could put a spring under the screwdriver as it's fairly heavy and bulky, and the stinger is 6 feet long. I had reinforced it with a larger plate under the mount which I no longer have so I may have to find another. The HD version of the Diamond back is thicker metal than the non-HD version. For that very reason, I ordered the HD version for the Gladiator. If you have non-HD version, you'll probably have to reinforce the mounts a bit.
That is a nice setup. So much that can be done with the diamondback, though the thought of drilling into that thing scares the crap out of me, lolThey're telling me that my Diamondback cover has shipped so I'm hoping that I'll receive it by this weekend and I can start working on it. For a reference, you can see how I had my HF screwdriver antenna and my UHF/VHF antennas mounted on my Diamondback cover on my new Raptor here. This worked exceptionally well.
So, I think of it this way... if you drill the holes then decide that's not what you wanted to do, you can simply get a black-headed bolt and put in the hole and you'd never notice it, and it doesn't affect the integrity of the cover. If you screwed up big time, you could literally bring the cover to a welding shop and have them weld it back. Basically anyone that does body work should be able to repair anything you do bad to it. Love the all metal covers. The only thing I will have to do is ground strap the cover to the bed after the antenna install.
Thats a good way of thinking of it. I love the diamondback, but man was that thing expensive.
Nice Setup! Getting ready to start studying for my general license an HF rig in the gladiator would be awesome. I do have D-Star on my ICOM 5100a but HF would be way better.For another reference, I had a custom mount made on the rear tire carrier on that JK and ran the longer mast screwdriver antenna from there. There are two UHF/VHF antennas on the back in addition to the HF, one for my main radio and I was also running APRS positioning. The front was a 102" whip I had on the CB, but could connect that back to the radio on HF side through a tuner and run 6 meters from it nicely. I had an overhead AB to switch antennas between radios. The Gladiator will have some similar setups and I can use what I've learned from previous setups to do it better. (Hopefully)
I'll post pics up once I get a little further along on the JT.
