So, way back at the Indy Hamfest, I bought a TYT TH-9800 from Steve Jones, W9SMJ, who happens to run State of the Art Communications up in the Russiaville area. The TH-9800 is more or less a clone of the Yaesu FT-8900 FM quad bander (70CM/2M/6M/10M), but considerably cheaper — I got mine for $250. Or maybe it was $225, I don’t recall for sure. Anyway.
I installed it in the Escape vice the FT-7900 I had been using for awhile, and bought a diplexer to split the 2M/440 signal away from the 6M/10M signal. I don’t really care about the 10M capability of the rig since I don’t think any of the 10M repeaters in Indiana are actually running, but we do have some 6M activity around here and I wanted the flexibility to go mobile with it. The 6M signal is being piped to a Larsen NMO 150 (5/8 wave, 2 meter) antenna that is just short of a quarter wave on 6M. I measured the SWR as less than 2, so I feel like it’s usable until I get around to buying a proper 6M mobile antenna.
The problem I had been having was diagnosed from signal reports as the usual Ford “disease” — ignition or fuel injector or SOMETHING noise into the radio on transmit — so I hadn’t actually been using it at all on 6 since the first couple of tries. A few weeks ago I got around to adding a ground wire from the antenna mount to a sheet metal screw on the body, thinking that the problem was likely due to the mount (it’s a Diamond K400SNMO) being attached to the hatch and not the actual body of the car. But I hadn’t had a chance to get a signal report yet.
As it happened, we were out last night when it was time for the 6 meter net, and I did a late check-in from the mobile just so the group knew I wasn’t dead or something, and apologized in case the signal was bad. But I was told that I had a good clean signal! So apparently, all it really took was getting a good ground from the mount to the body of the car, which was what I was hoping. I really didn’t want to go through all the trouble I’ve heard it can be to chase down that kind of thing for a mobile.