Wire dipole for truck?

Well the mag mount for my car has arrived, but I'm away working at the moment and it'll be several days before I can get to test it out.

That's got me thinking though about an antenna for the truck. There's no obvious really good place to mount an antenna, and it can't be permanent either as the firm has four trucks and I could get sent down the road in any of them.

The one I'm away in at the moment is a DAF XF with the super mega xxl space cab (or whatever it's really called).

A mag mount antenna would get knocked off within the first few km.

One idea, for evenings parked up, was for a centre fed half wave dipole set up via the sunroof, draped over the top of the cab and slightly down the sides. Could something like this actually work?

I'm having a look around at other wagons parked up near me (in France atm) and all I can see on similar cabs are what look like short VHF or UHF rubber ducks permanently mounted on the sides of the cab roof.

Any suggestions would be very welcome. It would be interesting to have a listen to what's going on particularly as I come to the UK fairly regularly (or did until recently, anyway)

Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions!

J-P. 56CT005

It'll work but if it's horizontal it'll be crap for local stations.

I also drive one of those DAFs, albeit the Euro6 CF, and I'm sure everthing on the body above the door is GRP not metal so a Sirio ML145 magmount with a Sirio Performer 5000 that has the adjustable hinge could go on the side of the cab.

Thanks, yep I've just checked, you're absolutely right the roof is a moulding. The side of the cab is metal and tbh I'd never thought of using a magmount on a vertical surface but why not, thanks

The only thing I've not done is worked out how to get the coax into the cab without pinching it.

Just as an aside there's a load of RFI generated by the electronics in the middle of the dash area especially round the forward facing collision camera on the windscreen. It even affects my handheld on VHF and UHF. I have a Yaesu FT3DE which has a bandscope and as I moved it away from the centre of the dash you could see the noise floor falling.

This one I've got at the moment has the basic sunroof that's hinged at the front, so for a temporary evening arrangement the coax could conveniently go out that way. The motor that opens and closes it is easily controlled with the switch so it could be gently closed to minimise the gap without pinching the coax.

Our other XF has an aftermarket additional air conditioning unit fitted in place of the sunroof though. The other two vehicles are FH Volvos, one of which has a sunroof similar to the XF, the other has a hinged hatch.

If this is your regular truck I would make up a bracket that fits where the kerb mirror on the drivers door that would be the passenger door in the UK and I’d ground the door down to the main cab
Failing that tell you boss you want a Volvo

For when you're parked up, you could have a telescopic fibreglass pole and roll yourself a T2LT and tape it to the pole. Only takes a couple of minutes to put up and take down

Thanks for the suggestions. This isn't my regular truck, we've got two dafs and two volvos at the moment. Much prefer the DAF trucks as there is a lot more living space, we are away 1 - 2 weeks at a time