I am a traffic flagger, I've used a handheld cb off and on for years in my job. Recently I went to work for a new company that does a lot more paving and highway work. I've gotten by with the rubber duck antenna on my Midland ht until now. Now I'm looking at other options to get better range on my handheld. I use a 6' staff with a 24" wide aluminum stop sign on top for traffic control. I would like to find a way to mount either a dipole or a ngp setup on top of my stop paddle. Has anyone ever done this before?
I'm not terribly worried about the aluminum paddle absorbing RF from one side (though I'd prefer not) does anyone have any suggestions?
How about using a larger BNC aerial mounted to the top of my sign with a short coax extension? Or maybe even a wearable antenna that wears like suspenders or a vest?
Fwiw, I do have a uniden bearcat mobile with a wireless mic that I can use outside of my rig but the mic battery dies after about two hours of use and I can't change channels to talk to different crews using the uniden.