Mattkuhar
Member
Hi guys, does anybody know of a place in Connecticut that's affordable where I can get 3-4 NMO mounts put on the roof of my truck?
Affordable is a relative term.
If I was looking for a quality job, I would expect to pay 200-300 for labor, perhaps 3 to 4 hours.. Pulling trim, dropping the headliner, marking, drilling, cleaning, installing the mounts, running cables back to where you want them, then putting it all back together.
chris
When I had 3 of them installed on my new truck at the time (2011) it cost $300 at the local Motorola shop. They did an excellent job by the way. The only reason I took it to them was the air bag deployment module in the side curtains. I really didn't want to set it off some how. And with my luck........
Russ Abbey, KG4MAV
When they ran the coax, it was only long enough to get to the radios. There was only a couple of inches of slack in them.
Remember, you are the customer and they should do as you request as far as leaving some slack in the coax. But a question here, what type of radio are you going to install? If it's a Ham radio, does it have the remote head to it? And also how are you going to mount it? That is really the biggest question after the antennas. In my Ford F-150, I have the no drill radio mounts that hook to a seat bolt and hold the heads of both my dual band and HF radios. (two different stalks for the heads) They are cheap at $20 each so I went that route.
73
Russ Abbey, KG4MAV
ok, found a nice guy in my town that has done antennas for local people, and they have said he does decent work. i would just have to get the parts, is this an ok mount to use? my understanding is that i can use the same mount with different radios just by switching out the whip on the mount to match the transmitting frequency. is that correct?
3 4" NMO Brass Surface Roof Antenna Mount PL 259 | eBay
Well yes that does look like an ok NMO mount. However the ones I have used in the past the PL-259 on the end looks a little higher quality perhaps. The ones I used the PL-259 on the end was removable by just unscrewing it. (helpful when routing it through firewalls and such) But the one you show on Ebay looks fine. And yes you can use the same mount for different radio's / antennas. Normally you just unscrew the coil from the NMO mount and screw a different one on. There are tons of different coils available in NMO style. CB ones, VHF wide band ones etc. So no normally you would not switch out the whip but the entire coil. But in some circumstances you may only switch the whip depending on the coil. For instance if you had a quarter wave whip in for the city and then popped a 5/8 whip in for the bush. But you are making the right choice going with NMO. There is a ton of coils available in that mount and also it is pretty well top of the line. Very nice antennas made for those mounts from companies like larson and maxrad. Just be sure to keep those mounts dry. (get the rubber O ring on properly) If you have one your not using put a cap on it.
Well no I have never seen anything bigger than a 5/8 or 1/2 wave for VHF on a vehicle. For UHF however that would be easy. I think typically any mobile antenna that is real long is made of a thicker less flexible whip usually with a spring on the bottom. (think of the old 9' CB antennas) As far as performance of an antenna off the fender they actually work quite well. Especially on the higher bands. They tend to be a bit directional when mounted on the fender. Obviously the roof is the best though yes. However sometimes there are reasons for not going on the roof such as if you go on trails with trees a lot. Or if you go into underground parking areas. Also when you have a bunch of antennas on the roof those will start to become directional also. They will act as reflectors. So there's another reason to consider having one of your mounts off the fender.
One other thing to note is that for the lower bands such as CB the antennas that are made with NMO connectors on them are not optimum. They still work good though. However the best would be one of those 9 foot whips. But then that brings up other cosmetic issues etc. Generally on CB you need all the help you can get from your antenna.
whats a unibit? nope headliner is still there, been trying to figure out how to remove it without damaging it cause im thinking about doing self install except im afraid i wouldnt get them all lined up like id like. any opinion on what works best as far as arrangement of them? i was thinking across the roof drivers side to passenger side.
EDIT: didnt realize a step drill was a unibit lol. when i drill i should go from the outside in right? (to avoid splintering paint)