Midland MXTA27 NMO lip mount install

[WSEW200]

Anyone using the lip mount as described in the title?  I installed it on the driver's side of the hood on my Nissan Frontier, but when I tighten down the screws enough so that it is secure, the top of the mount lifts away from the hood enough so that when I screw in the antenna (Midland MXTA26) it's at the 11 o'clock position instead of straight up at 12 o'clock.  Looks goofy.  The hood is fairly thin. Was gonna try to bend the curved part of the mount to remedy the issue, but feels like it will just go back to the previous position once tightened.

Any suggestions/feedback?  Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Well I don’t know about any of the mounting but the mxta 26 is a ground plane antenna and when mounted in a lip/fender/edge will not work very well.  

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, Socalgmrs said:

Well I don’t know about any of the mounting but the mxta 26 is a ground plane antenna and when mounted in a lip/fender/edge will not work very well.  

Oh, horseshit. You’ve posted this many times before and you are still wrong. It will work better in some directions than others, but it will still work. 

[OffRoaderX]

1 hour ago, Socalgmrs said:

when mounted in a lip/fender/edge will not work very well.  

Sorry, but, wrong, or, at best "not necessarily correct"..

My antenna is also mounted where "it will not work", and yet I talk on simplex with people 20+ miles away and have used it to hit a repeater 93 miles away.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, WSEW200 said:

Anyone using the lip mount as described in the title?  I installed it on the driver's side of the hood on my Nissan Frontier, but when I tighten down the screws enough so that it is secure, the top of the mount lifts away from the hood enough so that when I screw in the antenna (Midland MXTA26) it's at the 11 o'clock position instead of straight up at 12 o'clock.  Looks goofy.  The hood is fairly thin. Was gonna try to bend the curved part of the mount to remedy the issue, but feels like it will just go back to the previous position once tightened.

Any suggestions/feedback?  Thanks.

 

No useful info to follow.

First, and as much as you don't want to break through the paint under the lip of the hood, the mount set screws must touch metal. and there is no rule that says you can't bend the mount to get it to conform to vertical. Just do the bending while the mount is NOT attached to the car hood. The hood will bend before the mount. That metal to metal connection is required to make the metal hood/fender be the same ground potential as the antenna mount base. If you don't have a good connection the antenna "thinks" the ground is at the back of your radio and your grounding system is no good. One last practice we used when compelled to use hood/fender/trunk deck lid mounts was to put a piece of braided cable between the moving car part and the car body as close as possible (and as short as possible) to the antenna mount. Remember, metal to metal... paint is a radio no-no.

 

[SteveShannon]

14 minutes ago, WRKW566 said:

No useful info to follow.

First, and as much as you don't want to break through the paint under the lip of the hood, the mount set screws must touch metal. and there is no rule that says you can't bend the mount to get it to conform to vertical. Just do the bending while the mount is NOT attached to the car hood. The hood will bend before the mount. That metal to metal connection is required to make the metal hood/fender be the same ground potential as the antenna mount base. If you don't have a good connection the antenna "thinks" the ground is at the back of your radio and your grounding system is no good. One last practice we used when compelled to use hood/fender/trunk deck lid mounts was to put a piece of braided cable between the moving car part and the car body as close as possible (and as short as possible) to the antenna mount. Remember, metal to metal... paint is a radio no-no.

 

This is also untrue. The connection to the ground plane does not require metal to metal contact.  It’s RF, at UHF, not DC (which would require metal to metal contact). The paint layer will add some slight capacitance, but slightly capacitive capacitors are conductive to UHF.  I use the MXTA26 with a magnetic mount.  Mag mounts have no metal to metal contact and they work fine.

[WRUU653]

45 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Oh, horseshit. You’ve posted this many times before and you are still wrong. It will work better in some directions than others, but it will still work. 

He may be wrong but as he does often he did answer first.

@WSEW200 could we see a photo? Maybe that would help with the brainstorming. Could you securely shim it to prevent it sitting on an angle with the screws going through the shim maybe?

Don't pay any mind to the idea that a lip mount won’t work, I use a variation on the lip mount idea. This actually mounts using the bolts for the hood hinge. This mount is on a Tacoma and made by Rugged Radios. I’m not sure if one is available for the Frontier. I have had very good success with both the MXTA26 and a Comet SBB5. Not a problem.

[nokones]

10 hours ago, WSEW200 said:

Anyone using the lip mount as described in the title?  I installed it on the driver's side of the hood on my Nissan Frontier, but when I tighten down the screws enough so that it is secure, the top of the mount lifts away from the hood enough so that when I screw in the antenna (Midland MXTA26) it's at the 11 o'clock position instead of straight up at 12 o'clock.  Looks goofy.  The hood is fairly thin. Was gonna try to bend the curved part of the mount to remedy the issue, but feels like it will just go back to the previous position once tightened.

Any suggestions/feedback?  Thanks.

 

Just bend it to your liking. I had to do the samething on my 23 Wrangler IZARUBI for a Lip-Mount because the curve in the hood which made the antenna point off-to-the-side. Most likely, you will end up with a gap under the mount at some point.

[WSEW200]

Thanks for the helpful (and entertaining) replies. I also thought about placing a little shim underneath the hood. I'll try that as well as a slight bend and see how it goes.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

This is also untrue. The connection to the ground plane does not require metal to metal contact.  It’s RF, at UHF, not DC (which would require metal to metal contact). The paint layer will add some slight capacitance, but slightly capacitive capacitors are conductive to UHF.  I use the MXTA26 with a magnetic mount.  Mag mounts have no metal to metal contact and they work fine.

I think the length of the coax becomes a factor with a magnet mount. That coupling is part of the design where a lip mount has to be designed to deal with a larger number of variables. That nice round flat piece of metalized tape under the magnet mount is easy to deal with mathematically where the vagaries of the edges and other stuff the lip mount encounters can't easily be handled so requiring a physical "DC" ground is a way to avoid the problem. I have found that many customers having a problem with a lip mount had moved it for some reason and afterwards starting having a problem. Simply tightening the screws to break through the paint solves this stuff for most of them. The guy who tries to mount a lip mount to a fiberglass piece, not so much.

I'm not arguing the physics between the two antenna systems I just know from experience how they behave. I'm also not trying to put myself in the way of another person's way of doing things or place myself in any position of "authority". I just have "been there, done that" and putting that out for consumption. Best resource for the use of an antenna is the instructions that come with the product.

[dosw]

4 hours ago, nokones said:

Just bend it to your liking. I had to do the samething on my 23 Wrangler IZARUBI for a Lip-Mount because the curve in the hood which made the antenna point off-to-the-side. Most likely, you will end up with a gap under the mount at some point.

With antennas you can't be sure something won't work without testing.

Here's an example of my mount that definitely doesn't work... It's never successfully worked a repeater 150 miles away. But it does hit one 65 miles away. Is that good enough?

I've tested this setup with five antennas. It checks out on the SWRsometer (both a NanoVNA and a Surecom SW102), and it hits a repeater more than five dozen miles away. Sure, it looks terrible because it's on my beater camping Bronco. But it works very well. Part of what helps it work well is the fact that there is metal in all directions. The Jeep shown metal in all directions too. The slight gap in the metal doesn't make it not work.

 

As for how to keep it from tilting, I had to bend mine a little, and I put a small shim on the inside, where the set screws are, to help it tighten correctly without lifting as much.

Here's my install:

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[SteveShannon]

18 minutes ago, WRKW566 said:

I think the length of the coax becomes a factor with a magnet mount. That coupling is part of the design where a lip mount has to be designed to deal with a larger number of variables. That nice round flat piece of metalized tape under the magnet mount is easy to deal with mathematically where the vagaries of the edges and other stuff the lip mount encounters can't easily be handled so requiring a physical "DC" ground is a way to avoid the problem. I have found that many customers having a problem with a lip mount had moved it for some reason and afterwards starting having a problem. Simply tightening the screws to break through the paint solves this stuff for most of them. The guy who tries to mount a lip mount to a fiberglass piece, not so much.

I'm not arguing the physics between the two antenna systems I just know from experience how they behave. I'm also not trying to put myself in the way of another person's way of doing things or place myself in any position of "authority". I just have "been there, done that" and putting that out for consumption. Best resource for the use of an antenna is the instructions that come with the product.

You’re right that a mag mount has a much greater surface area, which does allow better (and more predictable) capacitive coupling.

Metal to metal contact will also remove capacitive reactance, resulting in a different SWR (might be better depending on the inductance of the antenna).