so ive been going back and forth on this for a few weeks now and cant really make up my mind. i just put a Yaesu FT-7900 in my 2018 F-150 and its working fine but the antenna situation is kind of a mess right now. im running a NMO mount on a mag mount temporarily just to get on the air but i know i need to do this properly at some point.

the problem is i really dont want to drill through the roof if i can avoid it, not because im scared of it exactly but this truck still has payments on it and i just feel weird about it. ive been looking at the lip mounts that go on the rain gutter area but the F-150 doesnt really have a traditional gutter so that complicates things. someone at the club mentioned a stake pocket mount in the bed but id be worried about the antenna being back there and the ground plane being weird.

what did you end up doing on your truck or SUV, and did the location actually matter that much for everyday VHF/UHF use around town and hitting repeaters? im not doing anything exotic just local stuff and maybe the occasional simplex

honestly for just hitting local repeaters on 2m and 70cm the placement matters way less than people make it sound online. ive got a lip mount on the drivers side of my Tacoma hood edge, been there for 3 years, works great. the ground plane isnt perfect but a decent antenna like a Larsen or a Diamond will cover the difference easily enough.

the stake pocket thing can work but yeah the ground plane in the bed is not great, metal everywhere but its kind of broken up and youre farther from the cab which is where your radio is, so youre running longer coax and if you dont do the coax routing right you can get all kinds of noise from the truck electronics bleeding in. id probably do a hood mount or look at one of those hatch/trunk lip mounts if you really dont wanna drill. drilling is better long term but i get the hesitation when you still owe money on something.

im in basically the same boat, newer car and didnt wanna drill so i went with a mag mount for way too long lol. eventually just bit the bullet and did a proper NMO through the roof and honestly it wasnt bad at all. there are good kits with a nice low profile mount and if you use a quality cable seal its not going anywhere. resale value thing is kinda overblown imo, you fill the hole if you ever sell it and nobody cares. but yeah if youre not ready for that the hood lip mounts do work, my buddy runs one on a similar truck to yours and hes hitting repeaters 40+ miles out no problem on his 50 watt radio