so ive been running a mag mount on the roof of my truck for about a year now, diamond SG7900A, and honestly its been fine but i keep reading that a proper NMO through-hole install is noticeably better and i'm starting to wonder if i should just bite the bullet and drill. the truck is a 2019 F150 so not exactly a beater i dont care about, which is part of why ive been putting it off.

the other thing is i travel for work and sometimes the antenna comes inside with me when i park in sketchy lots, so the mag mount has that going for it. but i also notice the SWR seems to creep up a bit when the mount shifts even slightly and i have to mess with it. and the cable routing under the door seal is kind of janky.

anybody gone from mag to NMO on a newer truck and actually measured a real difference, or is this one of those things that sounds good in theory and doesnt really matter in practice if the antenna itself is decent? also curious whether anyone has done it on an F150 specifically because i've heard the roof skin is a little thinner on these and i dont want to crack anything.

drilled NMO on my '18 Ram about two years ago and honestly yeah it does make a difference, not huge but measurable. SWR was flatter across the whole 2m band and the 70cm numbers cleaned up noticeably. mag mounts work but the ground plane contact is never as consistent, especially after the truck flexes a bit or the mount gets moved around.

the roof thickness thing on F150s i cant speak to specifically but the general rule is just go slow with a step bit and dont be an idiot about it. seal it properly with self-amalgamating tape and some silicone around the base and you'll be fine. i ran the coax down through the A pillar and under the carpet, took maybe 3 hours total and i'm not particularly fast at this stuff. only thing i'd say is if you really do need to pull the antenna regularly for parking situations, maybe look at a quick-disconnect like the Larsen or Comet QD mounts so you can pop the whip off without losing your ground plane.

i went back and forth on this same thing for ages. ended up doing a lip mount on the hatch of my SUV as a compromise -- no drilling, better contact than mag mount, and i can still get to it. not perfect but the SWR has been rock solid for two years. probably not as clean as a real NMO but for everyday repeater use and some simplex i cant tell the difference on the air.