ytechie

I went ahead and ordered the mount for the rear light on the cab. With shipping and tax it was over $400. It's crazy expensive, but it will look really slick. Because of my garage door, I'll end up just using my Laird 6" 1/4 wave antenna most of the time. I don't want to risk hitting a taller antenna. As it is, the truck barely fits in my garage (it showed up a few days ago).

I got the truck, took off the rear light/camera on the cab. There's only a tiny cavity behind that light. I sent in my borescope to look behind the metal "wall" in there, and it's really messy behind that with the sunroof. Basically, I've ruled out the option of drilling a hole in the roof. I've narrowed it down to 2 options: 1. Use the NMO mount that goes on the rear light. I would use my 1/4 wave, 6" tall antenna (I don't want to risk hitting the antenna on my garage door). The downside is the cost of the mount ($359!) and the fact that I'll only have half a ground plane (forward-facing essentially). 2. Use the fender mount and find a good 1/2 wave GMRS antenna that doesn't require a ground plane. Feel free to weigh in. I'm curious if you think one would perform better over the other.

BTW, here the video that @SpeedSpeak2Me was referencing indirectly - thanks!:

My hope is that there is room to drill a hole between that light and the sunroof. I would have a proper ground plane in every direction. I already have the drill bit.

My 2023 Superduty shows up any day now. It's built and being shipped from the factory. I'm not concerned about the type of hood, it's that it will be mounted right at the corner of the hood by the cab. In one direction, I'll have the cab blocking it. Another direction, there will be no ground plan. For signal going forward and to the right, it would be a fantastic ground plane. I'm including a top down picture with "x" marking the spot where I would mount an antenna. That same pic shows that I *might* be able to install an NMO mount on the roof between the moonroof and the bed light. My plan is to remove that light and see how much room is in there.

Sounds good, I'll optimize for GMRS and live with what else I can hear. The stock radio antenna on the passenger side is ~32 inches. I was just hoping to keep the drivers side roughly symmetrical. I'm attaching a pic (not mine) of someone that went with this symmetrical setup using an MFJ-1412. This is all easier in the Ham world because I think there are a couple of dual-band antenna options covering 144-148/440-450. However, I need the best performance when I'm camping with my friends and we've settled on GMRS. I helped my dad install a 6" antenna on his truck roof.

Thanks all for the input. Yes, good assumption on the amateur frequencies. I think I've narrowed my options down to these - basically optimizing for GMRS and living with whatever VHF performance I get: Find a good 1/2 wave GMRS antenna and hood mount it (symmetrical to the radio antenna) - this would actually look pretty cool on the truck. Go with the 1/4 wave antenna and roof mount it - I will have a power moonroof, but I think I can find enough room for this option. This would basically be the most stealth option but performance outside of GMRS wouldn't be great. Alternatively, is there a device (is it a diplexer?) that would allow me to have a hood mount 2m/70cm antenna and the GMRS roof antenna? I even toyed with the idea of a physical switch, but something automatic would be even better.

I know this is a big ask, but I'm wondering if such a beast exists, that allows: GMRS send/receive Decent UHF receiving Decent VHF receiving 1/2 wave / No ground plane (will be mounting opposite of factory radio antenna near the hood) On my previous car, I roof mounted a Comet CA-2x4SRNMO when I wanted all of those capabilities, but that was with a ground plane. It's not an option on my new truck. If it doesn't exist, I'll stick with GMRS-only (1/4 wave on the roof or 1/2 wave hood), but I'll be a little sad that I might not be able to receive VHF decent.

Added permission since it seems like a common request, and I show the tone required if and only if it's an open system. The rest of the data can be accessed through the hyperlink to mygmrs.

Thanks for the all the feedback. This was mostly for listening while travelling, so I just added links to the Mygmrs site for the repeaters. That maintains the existing access controls. This also avoids some of the thorny issues a few of you brought up. All I really wanted to know was where the repeater was, and how far away. I would love to also add direction (will my signal improve/degrade/etc), but that will take a little bit of work to calculate heading. Addressing some of your comments: I'm aware of repeaterbook, but it shows by distance, not by channel. (in addition to be very out of date for GMRS listings) I love the idea of confirming hearing repeater activity. Perhaps a thumbs up/thumbs down. Thanks for the idea of adding open/private/permission info. Here it is with some CSS and links to the repeaters:

I was driving from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin today, and I was monitoring channels 15-22. I originally was monitoring all channels, but I was getting super-local chatter, and I was mostly interested in high-power simplex and repeater traffic. When I heard something, it got me thinking. What repeater are they using? That gave me an idea for an app or a web page. I downloaded the GMRS repeater database, and made some *really* crude JavaScript. I whipped this thing up in an hour, and it's embarrassing, but it works! Showing is probably easier than telling... It's just a web page that gets your location from the browser, and then looks up the closest repeater on each channel. Right now I'm only showing the basics, but there's no reason I couldn't show the "tone in" and also have a link to the repeater details. Useful? Did I just reinvent something? I didn't make it public since I'm not sure what the licensing is for the GMRS database. If someone knows, let me know. Or, if the owner wants to reach out, lets chat.

I was camping on Washington Island (WI). It's north of the "thumb" in Wisconsin. Basically the northern part of Wisconsin. I was scanning for local repeaters using a Wouxun 905g and started hearing some traffic. I tried making contact, but they said they couldn't make out what I was saying. I walked out of the woods to a nearby hill (about 20ft higher than my campsite). I made clear contact, asked where the repeater was, and my jaw dropped when I found out it was a repeater in Evanston Illinois, 230 miles away as the crow flies. It turns out they have a 200ft+ tower with a Yagi pointed north. The radio path was almost entirely over the lake. 230 miles! My mind is still blown. Anyone else done something similar?

I would like to mount a mobile HT (Wouxun KG-905g) in my car. I see that ProClip has a holder for some radios, but not this one. Does anyone have an idea as to a decent way to mount the radio so that I can use it in the car, but also grab and go?

@berkinet, did you pull the trigger on the Retevis? I want to get a mobile unit ASAP and I want something that I can easily program from my computer (ideally chirp) and is also easy to use.