WRUJ218

Thank you all for the input! Some clarifications from my original post... My roof is asphalt shingles. The round vent near the peak is metal - likely a galvanized steel because another mag mount base I had stuck too it just fine. @axorlovThe Laird B4502 is definitely one I should look at - thanks. It is only 15" with a base coil. I would still use a mag mount base to stick to the metal vent. @kidphcThe vent I'm talking about using is a low-profile flat round passive vent, about 24" diameter, not a pipe. It is just for attic ventilation. @KAF6045Yeah I will probably see what happens without bending the antenna first. I thought about making a platform for a mag mount, but then I have a lot more work to do to make it stealth to my neighbor, if I can even make such a platform stealth. They sell bracketry to lay across your roof peak and weigh it down with blocks, but there's nothing stealth about that. @SshannonGood suggestions. I am getting a Nagoya UT-72G tomorrow for putting on my wife's car, so I will play with it on a baking sheet outside the window for starters, and see how high I can raise it for testing. I was also thinking about the attic thing again. I was wondering how big of an opening in the radiant barrier I'd have to make at the peak of the rafters to get decent signal past it, if I put a ground plane plate up there for a 1/4 wave mag mount. I may have to experiment with that first because that would solve a lot of problems. I realize it's a "everything affects everything", but I might tinker with that, and I can always put the radiant barrier back in place if it doesn't work. Definitely want to keep as much of the radiant barrier intact as possible because that made about a 30F difference in my summer attic temps! @kidphcYes I am interested in seeing if I can get decent simplex comms from my house. I'm not expecting 10 miles or anything with a stealth antenna, but hoping for at least 2-3. That's pretty much our life radius. The repeaters here in San Antonio are awesome and I can get into them from just about anywhere with my HT with OEM antenna. Their network covers the entire city+. But in an emergency situation I'm not expecting to rely on them. I have some experimenting to do this weekend...

I'm looking at putting a Nagoya NL-770G (38", 6dBi) or Nagoya UT-72G (20", 3.5dBi) mag mount on top of a round metal roof vent (about 24-30" dia) near the back-side-peak of my roof. The roof is asphalt shingles. Two floors plus attic - guessing the peak is 35-40ft. I haven't measured the roof incline yet. My experience on roofs is minimal so it's hard to estimate, but I find myself on a roof for one reason or other maybe once a year. The incline was uncomfortable and I was ready to be off after my exploratory trip. I have radiant thermal barrier in the attic attached to the rafters, so an attic antenna is unfortunately out. I have a new Wouxun KG-1000G I'd like to use in an upper bedroom. I am interested in using a mobile whip antenna since it should be pretty invisible from the street and neighbors, even if it sticks above the roof peak. I have a few questions if you guys would like to share some wisdom... 1. If I place the mobile antenna on the roof vent, using the vent as a ground plane, what kind of performance hit (not much, or not worth it?) would I take by bending the antenna to vertical at the base of the antenna? I assume the ground plane not being perpendicular to the antenna is where the issue would be? Or would it be better that I just let the whip point out at the same angle with the roof? If I did that, then I suspect that the radiation pattern is far from ideal. Perhaps the lower gain antenna would be better because the lobes are not so directed? 2. I don't mind coax running down the back side of my roof. But I haven't decided whether it would be easier to run the coax into the attic through the vent. In my case, trying to get the coax into the radio bedroom in that little space in the corner of the attic might be impossible, so that might be why I would run it down the roof and then straight in through the exterior wall, with a little careful routing along trim lines. If I do grounding correctly, then I have to run ground wire externally anyway. So I'm leaning towards running coax externally as well. If ya'll would like to share any experience or wisdom about what I'm doing or point me to some useful products, I would much appreciate it!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was looking up repeaters in the San Antonio area, on the search page. I am on the Alamo 575 already, but I noticed that it doesn't show up in the search. Maybe I'm not using the search correctly? I searched on "Alamo", "575", "San Antonio", etc. Others popped up but not Alamo 575.