so ive been running a diamond NR770HB on a mag mount for probably two years now and its fine but i keep reading that a proper NMO through the roof is the way to go for a real ground plane and better performance. makes sense in theory. the thing is i just bought a newer truck and honestly dont want to drill a hole in the roof if i can help it. looked at the lip mount options and they seem like a reasonable compromise but every time i bring it up on a local repeater someone tells me lip mounts are garbage and i should just drill the hole already.

anyone actually done a comparison, like measured it or at least noticed a real difference in day to day operation? im doing mostly local repeater work and some simplex when im traveling on highways. not really trying to hit anything exotic. also the truck has a moonroof so the center of roof thing isnt even an option, probably would do it just forward of that or on the trunk lid. not sure if trunk lid ground plane is worse or what.

just looking for real world input not the "drill the hole" lecture if possible lol

trunk lid is fine for vhf/uhf, dont overthink it. the ground plane is smaller but at those frequencies you dont need a ton of metal to make it work. ive had a hamstick style setup on my trunk for 2m and it was perfectly usable. the lip mount thing though, yeah those can be hit or miss depending on the clamp and how much contact you're actually getting with the body. i had one that developed a really noisy connection after a winter and my S meter on receive started jumping around. tightened everything down and it helped but not completely. NMO through the roof is cleaner just from a connection reliability standpoint, but if youre not contesting or doing weak signal work on VHF the difference in practice is probably not worth drilling into a new truck over. id just get a decent trunk lip mount, keep an eye on the connection and call it good.

the "drill the hole" crowd isnt wrong but they're also usually the guys who bought a dedicated radio vehicle and dont care about resale or have a 20 year old beater. for a newer truck i totally get it. i ran a lip mount on my 4runner for about 18 months, it was the Tram brand one i think, worked okay but the antenna did wobble more than i liked at highway speeds which probably wasnt helping anything. eventually went to a stake hole mount in the bed rail which gave me a much more solid connection and didnt require drilling the cab. might be worth looking at that option depending on your truck. some beds have pre-existing holes you can work with. anyway on the ground plane question the trunk lid works, people do it all the time, just make sure your coax run isnt picking up a bunch of noise from whatever electronics are back there.