okay so i finally pulled the trigger on a Yaesu FTM-400 and i've been staring at my 2019 F-150 for about two weeks trying to figure out the best way to do this without making a mess of things. ive done handheld stuff forever but this is my first real mobile install so bear with me.

my plan right now is to run the power leads directly to the battery which i know is the right way to do it, but the fuseholder placement is tripping me up a bit. like how close to the battery does that inline fuse actually need to be? ive seen people say within 18 inches but also seen people say closer. and then the ground, do i just find a good chassis bolt near the battery or does it matter more where i run it?

also the antenna situation. i was going to go with a NMO mount on the roof, probably center of the roof for best ground plane, but my wife is not thrilled about a hole in the roof so now im looking at lip mounts or maybe a hatch mount. anyone running a lip mount on a truck have opinions on how much it hurts your signal compared to a proper roof mount? im in a pretty flat area so i dont know if it matters that much but i want to do it right.

radio will mostly be used for local repeaters and some simplex when im driving around. nothing exotic.

the fuse thing - yeah keep it as close to the battery as you can, within about 6 inches honestly is what most folks aim for. the point is that if a wire chafes somewhere along the run and shorts, the fuse is there to protect that whole length of wire before the fault. longer unfused runs are just more wire that could burn. 18 inches is kind of the max i'd feel comfortable with personally.

for your ground, running it all the way back to the battery negative is actually the cleanest approach even if it seems like more work. chassis grounds can be okay but you can pick up all kinds of noise from the vehicle electronics depending on where you land. i had ignition noise on my old jeep install until i just did a proper battery-to-battery ground run and it went away completely.

on the antenna, lip mount will work fine for what you're doing. you'll give up a little compared to a true center roof NMO but honestly for hitting local repeaters you are not going to notice it. i ran a lip mount on my dakota for a couple years before i finally did the roof hole and i wasnt unhappy with it at all. diamond makes decent ones if you want something solid without spending crazy money.

oh man i just did almost the exact same install in my tacoma like two months ago, also an FTM-400. ended up going with the lip mount because my wife had the same reaction lol. i got the Tram 1185 and honestly its been totally fine. hits the repeater on the other side of the metro area no problem and thats like 35 miles. so i wouldnt stress too much about losing a little efficiency.

one thing i wish someone had told me - run your coax through the cab before you finalize where you want to put the head unit. i thought i had a good plan and then realized the cable routing was going to be really awkward for where i wanted to mount the radio. ended up rerouting everything twice. the FTM-400 separation kit is nice though, gives you a lot of flexibility on where you put the control head.