so ive been running my FT-7900 in my F-150 for about 8 months now and the antenna situation has just been kind of a mess honestly. right now i have a mag mount on the roof which works fine i guess but im worried about the paint over time and also it slides around a little when i hit the highway, never actually fallen off but it makes me nervous.

been looking at the lip mount options but my truck has one of those plastic bed covers and im not sure how that affects things. also thinking about drilling into the cab but my wife would kill me so thats probably not happening. just wondering what other mobile folks have done especially if you have a truck. im on 2m mostly but also hit the 70cm machines occasionally so ideally something that works for both.

I went through the exact same thing with my Tacoma a couple years back. ended up getting a mount that clamps onto the trailer hitch receiver and running a NMO mount off of that with a dual band antenna. its not quite as clean as a roof mount for pattern but honestly for hitting local repeaters it makes zero difference and i dont have to worry about paint or drilling anything. the cable routing is a little awkward through the bed but once i figured it out its been solid for two years now with zero issues. worth looking into if you have a receiver hitch already.

dont quote me on this but i think the bed cover thing matters less than people say for UHF, like the signal just kind of goes where it goes. that said i have a mag mount too and yeah the sliding is real lol. my buddy who does a lot of mobile work drilled a hole and just did it, said he was nervous too but its really not that bad and a proper NMO mount with a good antenna just performs so much better. maybe worth having a conversation with your wife about the resale value of good communications equipment ha