Tom,
I believe that there are scemes to mount an antenna to a rear view
mirror. I'm not sure that it would work as well as centered on the
roof but is an alternative. Years ago I had a Sears 5/8 wave mag
mount/atnenna on our old Pontiac, Ford and Astrovan roofs. Worked
dynamite but, finally after years, the whole thing wore out. Never
put an installation in our last mini, a Ford Aerostar - no more kids
at home, so no more car, so I'm out of the mobile biz.
Just rambling.
Thanks.
Pat, K9JAU At 02:44 PM 3/3/2013, you wrote:
>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
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