so i finally pulled the trigger on a FT-7900 for my truck and ive been going back and forth on where to mount the antenna for probably two weeks now. right now im leaning toward a lip mount on the rear hatch but my buddy keeps telling me i should do a NMO through the roof and just deal with the hole. he's probably right but man, drilling a hole in a 2019 truck feels wrong

for what its worth im mostly gonna be using it for local 2m repeaters and maybe some simplex when im out hiking and want to monitor from the parking lot. nothing crazy. but i still want a decent signal and not have the cab eating half my RF

anyone done a lip mount on a pickup or SUV and been happy with it? or is roof NMO really that much better that its worth the commitment. also still havent figured out where to run the coax inside, the firewall grommets on these newer trucks are kind of a nightmare

roof NMO is the way to go if you can stomach it, honestly. i put one on my Tacoma about four years ago and yeah it felt terrible for about five minutes and then i just got over it and now i have a perfect ground plane and no complaints. lip mounts work fine dont get me wrong but you do give up something in the pattern and depending on your truck the connection can be a little fiddly over time

for the coax run I went through the door jamb on mine, just tucked it under the weatherstripping all the way down and in through the kick panel. takes maybe 20 minutes and you'd never know it was there. firewall grommets on newer stuff can be brutal, some guys drill a new small hole but that feels like even more commitment than the antenna hole to me

im in the same boat right now actually, just got my tech and trying to figure out my first mobile setup. i went with a mag mount just to test things out before i commit to anything permanent and honestly for a first install its been fine. reception on the local repeaters is solid. but yeah everyone says eventually youll want the real mount so maybe just go for it