[Mobile-Portable] Spot welds

[Robin Midgett]

Because of the welds, the bed is one electrical conductor. You would be 
wasting time and material to bond the bed floor to the other panels it's 
welded to.

At 06:46 PM 2/11/2006, you wrote:



>Hi All,
>
>Please excuse all the "Stoopid" questions I've been asking, but within the 
>constraints of my budget I want to do this install CORRECTLY.
>
>Today I was crawling around under my '05 Ford F150 "SCREW" pickup, trying 
>to see what is involved in "bonding and grounding" this critter, 
>preparatory to putting HF in it (and skinned my elbow big time on the 
>concrete driveway doing it 8^(
>
>The (screwdriver) antenna will be mounted just over the driver side wheel 
>well. Predictably the bed of this critter is comprised of several 
>different pieces of sheetmetal. EACH sidewall AND the wheelwell is one 
>piece, the floor is another piece, then of course there is the front of 
>the  bed and tailgate. I figured on having to bond the sidewalls to the 
>floor with braid in several places, which would require sanding the paint 
>etc and leave it open to rust and corrosion.
>
>HOWEVER, crawling around under the truck I saw where BOTH the INSIDE 
>sidewalls AND the floor have roughly a 3/4-1 inch lip bent down at 90 
>degrees running the length of the bed, and where the two sections meet 
>they are spot welded together at numerous places.
>
>It SEEMS to me that these spot welds would be AT LEAST as good RF wise as 
>bonding with a finite length of braid, possibly better?  They have to be 
>strong as it is what holds the bed of the truck together!
>
>Now, I realize that this won't NEGATE the need to bond the pickup bed to 
>the cab (rubber bushing mounted), frame, hood to front fenders, firewall 
>etc. But it DOES seem like the bed proper (except for tailgate) ahould be 5x5.
>
>Yes, I've given up on the Tuner/102" whip idea and will be going with a 
>screwdriver, probably a DK3 as it meets my budget (and I won't be 
>oeprating Mobile on a constant basis with constant tuning).
>
>THOUGHTS on these grounding questions?
>
>******************************************************
>73 de Phil,  KO6BB
>DX begins at the noise floor!
>
>THE BEACONEER'S LAIR:  http://www.geocities.com/ko6bb/
>QSL GALLERY: http://photobucket.com/albums/y123/KO6BB/
>Merced, Central California,    37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh
>
>******************************************************
>----
>Your Moderator: Dick Flanagan K7VC, mobile-portable-owner at mailman.qth.net

Thanks,
Robin Midgett K4IDC
VHF+ Glutton EM66se