Here's my aftermarket antenna on my R56 Mini:



It's a Cushcraft R8, which is 28.5 feet high, not counting the 8 foot mast it's attached to! We used this as one of three antennas for the Field Day amateur radio contest, June 28-29 2008.

This antenna covers ham radio bands from 3.6MHz to 54 MHz. From our site in Northern California, I used this antenna to work other ham radio stations from Alaska to Hawaii and south Florida to Maine.

It is kind of hard to drive with, though! It does disassemble into sections, which fit nicely into a carrier on top of the Mini.

For the ham radio crowd, we were AE6FD, operating on solar power from a ridgetop outside Murphys, CA. Thanks to Mike at the Querencia resort for the hospitality!

 

That is cool

CROC 411

 

Looks great! We stopped out at the local field day event in Ninety-six, SC yesterday, but my shoulder injury prevented us from getting back out there. One of the hams mentioned that there is an article out there about a MINI ham operator setting up the two useless buttons on his 1st gen MFSW as PTT for the radio he had setup in the boot. Pretty neat!

I'm looking forward to getting back into it and dragging the gf into it as well, as she's pretty much given the go ahead on putting a through the glass antenna on her R50. We'll see how it goes though!

73 de KI4CLM

 

Interesting....most folks tend to go for a shorty!!

 

Wow ... haven't done Field Day for more than 40 years ... last time was from Oregon ... did, however, create quite a stir as TF2WKY from Langanes, Iceland, during the mid-60s .... hmmm, maybe next year Field Day + MINI sounds like a great idea.

73
K7QVO

KWM2A + 30-L1 ... have this rig, but NOT installed in the MINI
Since 1961

 

I'd love to find out how many hams we've got in the MINI community and their mobile rigs... Then I could get ideas for my own!

 

Wow, I can only imagine how huge the hand controls are on the remote for that thing!

 

It's not the size that matters it's how you use it.

 

Very nicely done.

I haven't done Field Day since I was a kid. No time these days.

73 de N9TAN

 

Does it whistle at speeds over 40? I really hate antenna wind noise. That's why I took the satellite dish off...

 

i think you should just tilt it forward and drive it like a Jousting RAM

LOL

that is too cool

 

...we assemble it horizontally, then tilt it up and secure it to the supporting arm. It's pretty wobbly when horizontal, and kind of wobbly when vertical, too! But it works really well.

 

Bump.....Field day is coming up soon....

 

Does that AM and FM both?

 

Weak if not attached to car