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I managed an MSS years ago. I took some local city admin folks on a tour of our new facility we built. When walking through the garage a woman said "Oh dear they are drilling holes in that brand new car" (Crown Vic)....I said "No, Maam, they are installing antennas". It's not a hole in the roof if it has something installed in it. As above....Drill the hole!

Update: just tested SWR of the tram 1480 on my little nanovna contraption from 460-470 MHz, highest SWR was around 1.7 at the top, got as low as 1.3 towards the bottom. So no radio kablooey We'll get her sealed up, mounted and grounded soon at my son's house and see what we've got.

I'll keep that in mind...

I would be wary of that LNA. Assuming your duplexing and preselector is working properly to reject TX noise and carrier (TNRD) to the degree that the additional low noise is useable, i would install an attenuator after that LNA to remove excess gain before the receiver. You do have that preselector between the duplexer and LNA I assume? Have you performed a duplex sensitivity (effective sensitivit) test into dummy load and antenna? If you don't run this basic test, the repeater can be functionally deaf.

I actually used on of these directly thru the plastic roof of a UTV. It worked well on UHF. Tried similar on a VHF install and while it worked OK, I was a bit more challenging to install. I run one on my motor home ladder mount now with a quaterwave antenna for my on board repeater.

Definitely VHF. They may of licensed UHF for a control link of some sort over time. I had a few construction companies that did that when they were on lowband. a local UHF repeater was installed at the building and was tied into the lowband base radio. This allowed guys in the shop and yard to talk to the trucks on the road via portable radio.

if you're really against drilling the hole, midland DOES sell a better mag mount (with better cable than what the radio came with); it's a NMO mount, and they currently have a unity gain (6.5") antenna to go with it on clearance for 7.99, or you can do the new 3db gain (3.5" tall, apparently) one for a bit more. https://midlandusa.com/product/mxta9-unity-gain-antenna/ https://midlandusa.com/product/micromobile-mxta25-3db-gain-ghost-antenna/ https://midlandusa.com/product/mxta12-antenna-mag-mount/ photo is the unity gain next to a 12 oz nyquil bottle (if it loaded); it's very close in length to the stock one, but fatter at the base. (i also have the 3db version that's the same design, but a little longer)

As others have stated the best option is to ditch the stock antenna and replace it with a good laird or comparable antenna and mount. The stock antenna has the worst coax I have ever seen on a UHF radio. I personally am a fan of 1/4 wave antennas if you are in an urban area or operate within 25 miles of your local repeaters but only if you can install a thru roof NMO mount. I never had great luck with mag mounts, even when I bought my new GMC it had holes in the roof before it had a 100 miles on it. If GMRS is something you plan to stick with drill the hole!!!

Wow... what a hot mess that thread turned into. Through my life, I have always heard and believed that purpose of Amateur Radio and what has become the Public Radio Service is to promote goodwill and forward the science. Those folks don't seem to be interested in anything of the sort.