so i finally got around to mounting my FT-7900 in the cab after it sitting in the box for like three months. went with a ram mount bracket on the console which works pretty well actually, the head unit is right at eye level which is nice. ran the power cable direct to the battery with an inline fuse which i know is the right way to do it but man that was a pain routing through the firewall on my F-150.

anyway the antenna situation is what im not sure about. right now ive got a Nagoya NMO mount on the roof center which i drilled out myself, first time ive ever done that and honestly it was terrifying. using a dual band whip on it, not a super expensive one. on the local 2m repeater i sound fine according to folks there but i tried hitting a 70cm repeater about 30 miles away and people say im a bit scratchy sometimes. is that the antenna or could it be something else? the SWR checked okay but i only have a cheap meter so who knows how accurate that is.

also does anyone else find that mobile on 70cm is just harder in general, like more multipath or whatever? or is that just me

yeah 70cm mobile is definitely trickier than 2m, the shorter wavelength means it doesnt punch through buildings and terrain as well and you get more multipath weirdness especially in hilly areas. 30 miles to a repeater on UHF from mobile is actually doing pretty well depending on your terrain. the antenna could be a factor too - a lot of the cheaper dual band whips are really optimized for 2m and the 70cm performance is kind of an afterthought. if you want to get serious about both bands you might look at something like a Tram 1185 or even separate antennas if thats not too crazy for your setup.

the direct battery run with fused cable is absolutely the right call by the way, good on you for doing that instead of the cigarette lighter nonsense. what fuse size did you go with? just curious if it matches what the manual specifies for the radio.

I had almost the exact same setup in my Tacoma for a while, NMO roof mount with a cheapo dual band whip. Switched to a Diamond NR770HB and it made a noticeable difference on 70cm, like honestly surprised me how much. Still have the 7900 actually, great radio for the price. The multipath thing on UHF is real though, sometimes youll be moving 5mph and the signal just flutters in and out as you drive past stuff, thats pretty normal and not really an antenna problem you can fix.