Need Help to ID Old Marine HF Vertical Whip - Possible 160 Meter Mobile Antenna

[AJ1G]

Hi Tom.  Nice setup in your Tacoma.  Yes my 2012 Tacoma does indeed have the GRP one piece bed and inner fender liner tub . I think I may have shown it to you at one of the spring Nearfests you have attended. In my opinion it’s what sets the Tacoma and the Tundra apart from the rest of pickup trucks on the market.  You can beat the crap out of that GRP bed without worrying about denting it or scratching paint.  If you ever would break it it looks like it would be easy to replace.  It’s one shortcoming for mobile HF is that it leaves a lot of potential useful  counterpoise surface wanting.  This last spring I took steps to remedy that by covering the floor of the bed with a couple of sheets of stamped aluminum wire mesh lath that Home Depot sells for abut 17 bucks for a 96 by 42 inch panel.  It’s sold in the wallboard and sheet rock aisle for use in old school plaster wall construction.  The left and right rear corners of the mesh are bonded to the tailgate pillars at the hasps for the tailgate latches.  My HF antenna feed line shield is bonded to the left side hasp at one of its  two large mounting bolts into the pillar. I have not done any other special bonding of the truck body and frame, although others highly recommend it, some to the point of obsession. The Shakespeare marine lay down antenna base mount I use for the Webster Bandspanner and the 160 meter antenna is mounted on an old Master Mobile L bracket section that is fastened to the pair of bolts on the top inboard side of the left tailgate pillar.  I picked up a pair of these brackets at Nearfest the first time I took the then new truck to the fester.  Thier mounting hole spacing was almost a perfect fit to the pillar bolt spacing.  I had to hog out one bracket hole slightly to make them fit.  The mounts originally came with plastic center insulators and a 3/8x24 female coupling for mounting an antenna on, but they eventually cracked from age and UV embrittlement and were removed. I installed both L brackets one on the left and one on the right tailgate pillar. The right one is unused at present.

I covered the added aluminum lath panels over the bed with some vinyl diamond mesh mats also sold at Home Depot, securing them to the bed with stainless steel oval head screws and shoulder washers.  Looks
pretty good and keeps stuff in the bed from sliding around better than the relatively hard surface of the stock GRP bed.

In addition to the Shakespeare lay down base, there is also one of the Toyota adjustable GRP cleats positioned at the left rear corner of the inside top of the bed that is drilled to hold a 3/8x24 female coupling for mounting lightweight antennas such as Hamsticks. The cleat is also drilled to anchor a nominal 18” long piece  of thick wall 1 1/2 inch ID PVC pipe that is also anchored on the bottom with an end cap and bolt onto the bed.  This can be used as a mast “step” for large antennas such as my large “DX Skimmer” vertical made from a 16 foot overall two section Ocean State Job Lot  pool skimmer handle. There is a picture of the feed point installation features on one of my earlier posts on this thread.