Original box that contained 12 clips from our warehouse
During the rapid growth of citizens band and mobile amateur radio activity in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, antenna manufacturers developed a wide variety of mounting hardware intended to help operators install antennas on virtually any vehicle or structure without permanent modification. One of these accessories was the Hy-Gain No. 573 Insulated Gutter Clip.
Produced by Hy-Gain, the No. 573 was designed as a simple clamp-on mounting solution that attached to the rain gutter edge found on many automobiles, trucks, and even some mobile homes and buildings of the era. At the time, metal rain gutters were common body features on vehicles, providing a convenient attachment point for mobile antennas before modern flush body styling largely eliminated them.
Unlike ordinary metal clips, the Hy-Gain No. 573 incorporated insulation between the mounting bracket and the antenna hardware. This allowed the antenna system to be electrically isolated from the vehicle body when needed for specific antenna configurations, matching systems, or noise-reduction purposes. Accessories like this were especially useful during an era when operators frequently experimented with custom mobile installations, HF mobile whips, CB antennas, scanner antennas, and monitoring equipment.
Catalog evidence places the No. 573 in active marketing circulation by approximately 1971, during the height of the original CB radio boom. Hy-Gain catalogs and distributor literature from that period grouped the gutter clip alongside trunk mounts, mirror mounts, fold-over adapters, spring bases, and the company’s well-known mobile whips and base antennas. The product was likely sold through amateur radio dealers, electronics distributors, truck stop CB counters, and mail-order radio catalogs throughout the 1970s.
The design reflected the engineering philosophy of the period: rugged stamped-metal construction, straightforward installation, and compatibility with a broad range of antennas using standard threaded mounts common at the time. Many surviving examples today still retain the original insulating material and chrome-plated hardware, though they are now considered vintage radio accessories and are most often encountered as new-old-stock items or in collections of classic CB and amateur radio equipment.
Today, the Hy-Gain No. 573 serves as a small but recognizable reminder of the golden age of mobile radio experimentation — a time when radio enthusiasts routinely customized vehicles with antennas, noise filters, linear amplifiers, and carefully tuned installations for long-distance communication on both CB and amateur bands.