I spend my days driving up and down motorways and highways across the EU & UK. I use an 891 and a ATAS 120A, on a triple magnet mount.. I bought my first ATAS (ATAS100) and the The Yeasu FT100 way back in time. I used a triple mag mount then. . Off topic slightly. To avoid corrosion on your mag mount, spread a little petroleum jelly all over it.
You would be shocked at MY cob job for using the 891 for POTA. I have a mount for my ATAS 120A on the fender of my pickup and I only attach it when I get to where I'm going to do my POTA activation. The antenna wire sneaks in below the F-350 badge on the fender, through the door, and up onto the dash where it sits all the time. When I get to my POTA site I put the 891 on the dash, hook up the coax, and run the power cord down to the Lithium battery sitting on the floor on the passenger side. CQ, CQ, CQ. It works like a charm. Not fancy or permanent, but works when I need it to. The ATAS is awesome. It really does the job. No bonding. No grounding.
Hi Stu, a good copper braid 28mm width at the bottem on the mount, find a good earth on the car take some paint of in the car attach the other end of the braid to the car, I have put a watson ranger 9 on my A200 at the front of the car, I have tried 20m works great, I did use some RG58 outter braid to try it, but I'm getting the copper braid 28mm 1m about 10 pounds, I use this ATU The LDG one with my Icom 706mk2g. 73's 2E1FUE speak soon 😊
I bought an ATAS a few weeks ago, not yet fitted it but it did make a brief appearance in my last video. I’m sure it will just be an electrical issue or something simple. Great fun video, Thanks M3VWN
Interesting and timely! I just installed a used FT 891 in the car and possibly buying the ATAS. I spent several hours with the same headaches as you! What I found was it would tune on 10 through 30 meters, but God forbid when it got to 40 meters it couldn't find a match and after a couple of minutes would tap the tune button. Then I tried going to for example 20 meters and it would not move at all. I eventually found my accident if I would key the mic and use the UP arrow, eventually the antenna would start moving down. That's how I sort of found the workaround anyway for the stuck antenna fully extended. I drove to a POTA park and worked 20 and 30 meters with it and got 12 easy QSO's with the ATAS. I'm still miffed about why it gets stuck and hopefully today using the up arrow while keying up will manually lower it for you. The arrows are opposite what you would think. You would think the down arrow is the one but it's not. Curious if you resolved the issue but scary we both dealt with the exact same issue yesterday. 73 KN3A.
Glad I'm not the only one :) Thanks for the tip, I'm just heading out to revisit it now actually so I will give your method a try ! appreciated👍 I'll post a follow up video.
The key to getting the ATOS to tune correctly is to make sure it has a good ground. If you are attaching it to your rear hatch make sure to run a grounding strap to the body. Some of the time the hatch and body of the vehicle aren't bonded well. I was able to tune 10-40 meters fine. I never tried 6 or 2 meters. As for the arrows being reversed I did have that issue but it was the only quirk I found with the set up.
The earthing is essential for the ATAS. This is why I never installed it on my car; I don't want to scratch paint or do welding on my car. Eventually, I made a ground stand for it along with ground-plane radials and I now enjoy using it portable.
Hi. Stu, I’ve installed 2 ATAS and have had these issues several times. Firstly grounding needs to be spot on especially if on a tailgate. I’ve used braided earth strap from the outer of the so239 to the chassis of the main body. Second it likes a fully charged battery. And thirdly they can get lost as to their position. There is a reset procedure I’m sure I’ve read before. Anyway once you get that they work superbly
Oh yes....Rf grounding is sooo important.I operate mobile on 160 meters with the Ampro whip and the grounding has to be spot on...And then it works... 73 G7HFS/PA3IKH
Had the same problem and the main issue is the input voltage. The voltage going into the radio must be 13,8V otherwise with only 12V the antenna wont budge. You can also, as I did, install a voltage regulator inline with the radio assuring the 13.8V even if the battery voltage is lower. Having that done all my tuning problems with the ATAS were solved.
I mounted my ATAS on the roof of my vehicle. That, of course, means a direct connection electrically to the body. Absolutely flawless performance from 6 to 40 meters. Reports and stations worked have been way above my expectations. Tuning can be slow but, once it is tuned, changing one or two bands at a time is quick. Just wanted to say I've found it my best investment.
It is a common myth that grounding is the problem with the ATAS. I assure you that is generally not the problem. I've put my ATAS on 2 cars (one with a Diamond K-400 Mount, another with a metal bracket bolted under the hood) and have done zero grounding or bonding to the antenna and it's worked great. Do make sure the metal screws of your mount have dug into the paint of your car though. That should be adequate enough ground for the antenna to work properly. What is really happening is sometimes the antenna gets confused as to where it is, hence the tuning with high SWR and it does nothing. The solution is to press the tune button and just let the it do it's thing. What will happen is the ATS light will keep blinking without putting out any power. It looks like nothing is happening, but this is a good thing. Just let it go for a solid minute and it will start tuning again. Basically it's recalibrating itself during this time. Once you do that, you should be good to go.
@@G5STU @hamradiotube Mike is 100% right, had the same issues and actually learned from Mike at FD this year about just waiting and letting it find itself basically. It is the best combo for mobile IMHO. Enjoy!
Yeah I agree Mike, it's not the first time I've used it and I did cut out the many minutes of waiting for it to do it's thing (doesn't make good viewing), there was actually a genuine fault, but I don't want to spoil the next video by saying it here (you know the game) :) cheers.
had the same issue with an ATAS but after grounding the antenna on my hatchback i found using one of the hatch retaining bolts a perfect source to earth , use to work without any issue s after that while using the the hatch mount also
With modern vehicles in my limited experience although the panels are spot welded the majority of the panel is bonded using miners adhesives. This doesn’t make a great earth on its own. My own experience is that I have earthed or earth bonded several different points on the vehicle to maximise efficiency. Just my experiences.
To get decent performance you will need to bond the tailgate to the body. Bonnet too. Maybe galf an hours work. I operate a 10 foot whip with a tuner. Its not great. Not as good as hamsticks on the higher bands and on 40m its pretty poor. Sometimes bigger isnt better.
Great video Stu think this is my perfect setup. Nearly bought one but someone beat me too it. Shame it doesn't have VHF/UHF. Yeah think it is a grounding issue. Lots of bits lol 73
I really tried to like my ATAS antenna but could never get it to tune up. Spent a day earthing my van and it still didn’t help. Sold it and got a selection of whips instead.
Took 5-10 min for mine to initialise sometimes if its been off the car for a while, to assist I turn everything off disconnect the antenna and try again it does it eventually lol
Hi Stu earth the antenna bracket to the car body and earth the radio to the car body mine is on the top of my campervan and is done like that and work great. Steve G8 WVB
