so ive been trying to figure out the best way to get coax from the trunk up to the dash on my 2019 honda crv and honestly its way more of a pain than i expected. i put a ft-7900r in my last car which was a 2008 civic and that was pretty straightforward, there was this rubber grommet on the firewall and i just poked through it no problem. but this car has way more stuff packed in there and i cant find a clean spot to go through without feeling like im going to break something.

right now ive got the antenna on a lip mount on the trunk lid which works ok but running the coax all the way around the door trim and under the carpet to get up front is a longer run than i wanted and i keep thinking about the losses, especially since im also going to be on 70cm fairly often for the local repeater nets.

anybody dealt with this on a newer honda or similar? or just general advice on finding a good firewall grommet location without having to pull the whole dash apart

yeah newer cars are definitely a headache for this. what i usually do is look around the firewall on the drivers side near the brake booster area - a lot of manufacturers still run wiring harnesses through there and sometimes you can slip coax alongside an existing grommet if you're careful about not nicking the rubber. a plastic spudger or a small screwdriver to gently open up a bit of space in the grommet works pretty well, then just use a little silicone or self-fusing tape to seal it back up after.

on the coax loss thing for the longer run, honestly for typical dual band mobile use the extra few feet isnt going to kill you as much as you'd think unless you're using really cheap coax. if you went with lmr-400 or even decent rg-8x you're probably fine. the bigger hit is usually the connectors and how well the antenna itself is grounded, at least in my experience.

i had a similar situation with my forester a couple years ago, ended up just going under the door sill trim on the passenger side and poking through the little rubber plug thats usually under the dash near the kick panel. its not glamorous but it works and you dont have to worry about disturbing anything important. some people hate that approach but for a mobile rig i just want it done and working honestly