I'm glad someone else remembers the Sears antenna.

I had the trunk lip mount version, and put many thousands of miles on 
it on my parents' car, a Datsun B210.

I also made many 6 meter ssb contacts running it with a Yaesu FT620B.

The trunk mount died sometime in the mid 80's. But, come to think of 
it, I still have the rest of that antenna in my storage building. I 
last used it with a home-made set of 4 radials mounted on a wooden 
balcony railing of an apartment. It got the 2 meter signal out of the 
house, and into the area repeaters.

Now, will anyone admit to having bought their 2 meter radio at Sears?

They sold 2 models that were made by Yaesu.

Two of my friends had them, and they were good rigs for the time. This 
was around 1977 and 78.

There was a lot of whining in the amateur radio media of the day 
regarding the pros and conns of Sears selling ham gear. The hobby 
survived, but Sears didn't get rich quick enough, so their ham gear 
didn't.

K5XU