Is this a good location for these two antennas?

[WRFH675]

I was using a magnetic mount atop the rear of the roof for a while. But the way the cable was ran, every time I opened/closed the rear hatch, it was rubbing up on it and crimping it. I didn't like that, so I purchased this new mount and cable for the hood.

[Lscott]

The hood location will compromise your range. The better place was on the roof.

I had a roof rack mount on my old Jeep. The cable ran down the side of the rear hatch opening. I used some duck tape to hold the cable in place along the opening and then ran the cable through at the bottom with a “drip leg”. The hatch door covered up the tape so you can’t see it. That way any rain would run down the cable and not get through the hatch seal.

[wrtq652]

Great answers thus far and spot on technically by LSCOTT.

The location on the passenger side hood is a reasonable compromise if you're constantly dealing with low overhead entries (parking garages).

Ideally the roof location and securing with tape inside the the rain channel of the door would both secure the cable and provide a better signal in most cases. 

It there is a roof rack crossbar on the roof (especially if metal), it might be best to keep the base of the antenna above it or the antenna a bit of away from the crossbar.

Most antenna installs are some sort of compromise between the ideal engineering location, asthetics, cabling, and not knocking it off the roof everyday. (I might have missed one there, the keyword is compromise, do what works to get you heard clearly and on the air would be the best advice I received yet.).

Overall, both installs on the passenger side hood look nice. Thanks for sharing the photos, let us know which one works better for you in that location (the Tram whip? or the "stealth/lower profile" antenna install).

[marcspaz]

 

 

So, is it a good location?  Sure, but up high on the lift gate will work better.

[gortex2]

1/4 wave on roof is ideal especially on a GC. Drop an nmo in the roof and dont look back. You will be much happier.

[WRFH675]

After testing these out quite a bit, I find that I'm not getting anywhere near good signal. I can't hit the local repeater through the mobile setup, however, I can hit it just fine with my HT.

As far as grounding and ground planes go, does the lip mount need to be grounded, or is it already grounded just by touching the hood? Same with ground plane, do I need to do anything special with either of these antennas or do they not need ground planes? I'm still confused when it comes to antennas.

[KAF6045]

31 minutes ago, WRFH675 said:

As far as grounding and ground planes go, does the lip mount need to be grounded, or is it already grounded just by touching the hood? Same with ground plane, do I need to do anything special with either of these antennas or do they not need ground planes? I'm still confused when it comes to antennas.

The instructions for most lip mounts include SCRAPING off the paint where the set-screws tighten it to the lip.

1/4Wave antennas require a ground plane -- that ground plane is the metal panel the mount is connected to (or the foil sheet capacitively coupling to the metal panel for mag-mounts).

[marcspaz]

There are very few antennas that don't require a proper ground.  Many lip mount systems come with aluminum plates to prevent damage to the lip, but unless you are using a half-wave antenna, you need to scrape a bunch of paint off or ditch the aluminum clamp plates and let the screws puncture the paint into the metal of the lip.

 

One of my lip mounts actually required me to add a ground strap.

 

Thus is an example of the clamp plates.. 

 

 

 

This is one of the mounts with a ground strap...