I too have had good success with trunk mounts on several cars. My 
folks had one car, a late 70s Datsun, with which I had to use the 
trunk mount on the side of the lid, rather than in the center of the 
edge near the wind shield. That setup worked as well as any other 
trunk mounted installation I have ever used.

I have seen people configure them to mount on the rear door of a van, 
but don't know exactly how they did that.

Does your vehicle have a luggage rack on the roof? If so, you may be 
able to get a mirror mount that will work there, but then you are 
still back to how to route the feed line.

The simple answer there is that no matter how careful you are, sooner 
or later the coax will break where it goes through the door, and 
become brittle where it is exposed to the elements.

I have never used a glass mount, but they don't work well with certain 
types of modern glass. Even when they do work, they are a compromise, 
more so on 2 meters than on 440.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2013 2:44 PM
Subject: Mobile Antenna Mount Options


Hi, all.

I need to tap into the wisdom of the group here concerning mobile 
antenna
mounts.

To set the background, the XYL and I have  leased a Subaru Forester 
for
about the last 3 years, and I have been using a magnount antenna mount 
for
the Diamond 770 dual-band antenna that I have used for years with our 
family
vehicles.  I bought this particular  magmount about 2 years ago, to 
replace
one that had been failing or at least questionable for quite some 
time.  We
put the magmount in the center of the roof of the car, and try to 
thread the
feedline as carefully as possible into the back door of the vehicle, 
where
it then goes to a TMV71A underneath the front drivers seat.

This set-up has actually worked surprisingly well, but I'm now  having 
a
problem with the coax feed line to the current magmount.  I have 
noticed
several breaks along the feed line, one or two of which could have 
been
caused by inadvertently closing the back vehicle door on the coax feed 
line.
Again, I had thought we were avoiding this problem, but maybe not. 
Also,
one or two of the breaks seem to be caused by the outside jacket of 
the feed
line becoming very brittle and actually splitting.

So, I'm now thinking of other possible ways to mount my mobile 
antenna.
Things, of course, are complicated in that we can't drill holes in the
leased vehicle.

One option I had thought of is a trunk mount, but I'm having trouble
envisioning how such a mount would work when you open up the trunk for
storing groceries and other things.  Also, I can't imagine that the 
antenna
on a trunk mount would work very well anyway, since it is so much 
lower than
the roof of the vehicle.

Has anyone had experience with trunk mounts?

If I stick to a magmount, does anyone have a magical formula for 
threading
the feed line from the outside of the vehicle into the car so as to 
avoid
problems with it getting caught in the door

?Is there a better-quality  magmount out there that has stronger feed 
line
that might not be as susceptible  to breaking or splitting?

Obviously, I've got lots of questions here, so any help would be
appreciated.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ