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Any local radio shop should also be able to do the work of shortening the cable as well.

Thank you. qrz.com is a good place for info. Maybe I should sign up there... G.

You might want to Google for: ​"review" anytone AT-578UV and look on the forums at QRZ.com. There doesn't appear to be any major issues with the radio, but several little things.

Looks like 10m is doing well tonight. I made multiple contacts around 500+ miles with 5/9+ on both ends.

Oops. I mistook the ' for a ". In the case of eight feet, the loss is minuscule like 0.8db. But, if there is no place for the coil it is probably a good idea to pay a bit extra to get the right length. BTW, UHF male connectors are among the easiest to attach on your own, if you were interested in having a whack at the cable on your own.

You don’t need sheet metal. That ultra-sticky aluminum HVAC tape fastened to the underside of roof works well. Just use an NMO mount that has teeth on the inside mount that will bite into the tape. That will give a decent rf ground through the coax to the body of the radio. You don’t need a complete circle either. Just an X or * of about 13” diameter is fine. We did a lot to fiberglassed roofs on ambulances and RV’s. . You’ll find the tape at any hardware or home improvement store. Another possibility, if there’s a headliner under the non-conductive roof, is to fasten steel or aluminum window screen or even chicken wire to the underside of the roof. If I doing a UTV like yours, I’d use a 6” quarter wave UHF antenna with the HVAC tape ground plane. It’s small enough to survive most tree branch problems, can be easily straightened if bent, and $10 each, you can keep a spare or two in your tool box for peace of mind. Add a commercial grade radio like the Motorola M1225 properly installed and shock mounted, and you’ve got a nearly bulletproof rig.

A 32" antenna is 1/2 wave on 175 MHz or 1/4 wave at the bottom of the FM broadcast band, or about 87 MHz. Neither of those will work on 462 MHz GMRS. Wavelength affects whether or not the antenna will work at all on a given frequency. Antenna length is related to wavelength. Don't worry about gain, especially for offroading. Gain isn't free. To get gain in one direction, you have to give up signal strength in other directions. It's best to just use a 1/4 wave or 1/2 wave antenna. And I would (and usually do) just use a 1/4 wave because it is small (6 inches), works well and is naturally self resonant and therefore dirt simple. Offroad, simple is better. The power limit for a GMRS (not FRS) radio is power to the antenna, not ERP. So even if you do have some gain, even if you brought along a portable high-gain Yagi beam (single-directional) antenna just to see how far you can reach from a mountaintop, you can still legally feed it the full 50 watts.