so ive been running a little nagoya mag mount on the roof of my car for about a year now and it works ok but im getting paranoid about it scratching the paint and also it slides around a little when i make sharp turns which im sure isnt great for the coax either. been thinking about switching to a trunk lip mount but i honestly dont know if theyll work as well on a regular sedan vs like an SUV or pickup. im running a yaesu ft-7900r into a dual band antenna, mostly just hitting local repeaters and occasionally doing some simplex stuff on 2m during nets.

anyone have experience with trunk lip mounts on a car with a short trunk? my trunk lid is pretty sloped so im not sure how well it would clamp on. also curious if theres a ground plane issue i should worry about since the antenna would be off to the side instead of centered on the roof. i know in theory centered is always better but figured id ask people who have actually done this in the real world.

I ran a trunk lip mount on my old Civic for probably three years and honestly it was fine. The ground plane thing is real but in practice for hitting repeaters youre not gonna notice much difference. The antenna isnt perfectly centered but you still have metal around it and it works. My signal reports were always decent.

The clamp itself, just make sure you get a decent quality one, the cheap no-name ones can crack or strip after a while especially in cold weather. I used a Comet one and it held up really well. One thing to watch is where you route the coax through the trunk seal, take your time with that part because if water gets in it can cause issues down the road. I used a bit of self amalgamating tape around the entry point and never had a problem.

i had the same worry about mag mounts scratching and switched to a trunk lip last year. honestly wish i did it sooner, feels way more solid. the sloped trunk thing depends on your car but most mounts are pretty adjustable. what kind of car is it?