Now that I have my little zBitX transceiver, I’ve been trying it out during POTA activations. For Field Day, I set up a temporary dipole, but it’s always nice to be able to operate right from the car. In the past, I’ve used a trunk mount and a magnetic mount antenna. The trunk mount doesn’t fit very well on my car (a 2014 Dodge Journey), and the magnetic mount is old and in pretty bad shape.

So I stopped at a truck stop on the way home from an activation and bought the mirror mount shown here. It fits (just barely) on the factory roof rack. I did have to make a run to the hardware store to replace the two bolts, as the ones provided weren’t quite long enough.  But it fits snugly and is secure.

As you can see, the coax connection just barely fits.  You do need to connect it before mounting the bracket.  I can use it with any of my Hamstick antennas, and today I tested it on 20 meters.

The mount that I purchased is Amarillo Supply Co. stock number 6163935, which is the store brand of Love’s Truck Stops, and you should be able to find it on the shelf at one of their locations.  Otherwise, it appears to be identical with this one at Amazon.

The purists will note that the rack appears to be made out of plastic, which is non-conductive.  So for a ground, I simply added a “radial” about 16 feet long.  You can see it attached to one of the bolts.  I ran that in the door, and around the molding of the rear door, out of sight.  Inside the car, also out of sight, it then goes to the front door, where it also runs around the molding.  I’ll probably add a couple more radials.

There are undoubtedly better ways to do it, but this provides an adequate ground.  I did another POTA activation today, and you can see that I was picked up on FT8 as far away as Costa Rica and Alaska.  And on CW, my signal was also picked up in the U.S. and Canada, as shown by the bottom map.

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