Glass mount antennas

[APX8000]

Has anyone had any luck with them? How do they compare to a trunk-lip mount? Drilling a hole is out of the question. I would be using it for VHF/UHF and mounting it in center of the rear window all the way on the top. Any comments/critiques?

 

[radio10-8]

I have 3 glass mounts on my vehicle and 2 NMO mounts (drilled holes) and here is what I do with them. Around town I use glass mounts and I have never had any problem with them. When I am travelling I remove the mount covers and screw on 2 antennas. (Yes, it looks kinda porcupine -ish) but I can say that the drilled antennas do pick-up more distant stations better. If you can go with drilled antennas, you will be happy. If drilling is not an option for you then I say glass mounts will work just fine for you. Also try rare earth magnetic antennas too. I also use them and I really like them! I have had drilled antennas in 3 of my cars and I have never had a leak! I even drilled that last car all by myself!

 

[OpSec]

Glass mount antennas are a poor performer on most bands, but the lower in frequency the worse the performance. If you are using the antenna in a high signal strength area then you may never notice a difference between it and a permanent mount antenna.

What is your application, and what are you using it for?

My primary VHF and UHF antennas are permanent mount, my scanner antenna is a lip mount and my CB antenna is a glass mount antenna. As I mentioned above, the CB antenna is not a good performing antenna...however, I only use it for close proximity reception on the highway and it fits that need quite well. I can't justify a permanent mount for a CB, so I used a glass mount.

If you are looking for a good peformance antenna for medium to long range communications, a glass mount isn't it.

 

[RISC777]

There are a number of trunk / hood lip mount solutions. Not mentioning mirror, bumper, etc.

 

[APX8000]

I think I'm going to have to say no to the glass mount and go with a trunk lip instead. Has anyone used the STI-CO vhf/uhf or any other brand. Am I going to lose alot of my signal strength by using a dual band antenna vs. two separate antennas? As before, trunk lip mounted, no holes.

 

[Al42]

I think I'm going to have to say no to the glass mount and go with a trunk lip instead.

Just remember - the trunk lid is ~5db down from the roof (about 4.5db down from the top of the window). If you want VHF-lo reception the trunk lid isn't much good anyway because you want a full-length quarter wave antenna. From VHF-ho up a well-designed on-glass, mounted properly, will come pretty close to an equivalent antenna mounted in the center of the roof.