Decisions... Decisions...

[KØWVM]

So the XYL and I recently bought a 2003 Honda Odyssey EX (Just under 90,000 miles on it) from a retiring Army Lt Col here in Germany and plan to ship it back just prior to retiring from the Air Force and heading back to the States. I am planning to purchase a Kenwood TM-D710G mobile to replace my aging Yaesu FT-8500 whenever I get back and install it into the Odyssey...

Now here is where my dilemma lies in looking at mobile 2/70 antennas... I have been reading eham pertaining to the reviews of the Comet SBB-5 and the Diamond NR770HA/B models. Both are rated fairly close, but I have read the +'s and -'s of both. I am leaning towards the Diamond with accessories since they do have a ham store about an hour from me here in Germany called WiMo (Wee-Mo).

I plan to get a roof rack mount too, but know pretty much what I want to anchor down the antenna.

"Roof rack? Why not drill a hole into the roof?" Not an option... To pull a football phrase... The referee (XYL in this case) will throw the yellow hanky on this one and I'll get slammed with a 15 yard unsportsman like conduct penalty (drilling a hole into the roof). That penalty could be any number of things... To include getting cut off (yep I am referring to bow chicka wow wow) until she is no longer mad (which could be weeks).

Knowing how eham is on some of their reviews and knowing how some people are... I don't fully trust hams I don't know to give their reviews.

Anyone know, or knows peeps who have experience with either product?

[NQ6U]

I've used both and couldn't notice any difference between the two, to be perfectly honest. A dual-band mobile antenna is a pretty simple device and you're not talking about big bucks in any case. I'd get the one that's easiest for you to obtain there in Germany.

[n0iu]

We had a Honda Odyssey and liked it well enough until we got a Toyota Sienna and much prefer it to the Honda. It has been to the moon (just over 250,000 miles) and are on our way back.

Oh, you were talking about antennas...

Sorry!

[kb2vxa]

I'll go with that, and add IMO mounting on a roof rack won't allow good RF coupling to the ground plane counterpoise, the roof. I'd go in the direction a friend took, a mag mount with a big ass magnet. Two reasons for that, one is an ordinary mag mount isn't strong enough to anchor it firmly, and two is the larger the magnet the more capacitance for coupling. Running the coax in between the door and frame is a bad idea, it'll bury itself in the gasket and cause a leak. Better through a window and don't forget the drip loop on the outside so water doesn't follow the coax inside. That's BTW is what that friend overlooked, rain poured down and I got soaked before I could move it where it dribbled somewhere else... UGH.

[WØTKX]

What about a 'trunk" lip mount that has enough adjustment to go vertical for the rear door? It's what I use on my Previa; one for VHF/UHF, the other (sturdier) for HF antennas. The Diamond K-400 is a good choice, I actually drill tiny holes for the hex set screws to insure a good ground into the "trunk lip".

Diamond and Comet both make decent mounts, and have them for roof racks. Roof rack mounts may indeed require ground strap(s) to perform better. Anyway, Wimo has it all.

http://www.wimo.de/mobile-antenna-accessories_e.html#004

If you COULD drill holes, Breedlove mounts are fantastic. I have one their "burly ball mounts".

https://breedlovemounts.com/

https://breedlovemounts.com/images/e40ac30e5a280bcc35bef5a905124806.gif

[K7SGJ]

What about a 'trunk" lip mount that has enough adjustment to go vertical for the rear door? It's what I use on my Previa; one for VHF/UHF, the other (sturdier) for HF antennas. The Diamond K-400 is a good choice, I actually drill tiny holes for the hex set screws to insure a good ground into the "trunk lip".

Diamond and Comet both make decent mounts, and have them for roof racks. Roof rack mounts may indeed require ground strap(s) to perform better. Anyway, Wimo has it all.

http://www.wimo.de/mobile-antenna-accessories_e.html#004

If you COULD drill holes, Breedlove mounts are fantastic. I have one their "burly ball mounts".

https://breedlovemounts.com/

https://breedlovemounts.com/images/e40ac30e5a280bcc35bef5a905124806.gif

I'll second anything that Breedlove makes. I've used a lot of his mounts, and they are bombproof. Very good stuff.

[NQ6U]

Breedlove is nice stuff, but maybe a bit overkill for a VHF/UHF antenna. For that application, I'm partial to NMO mounts myself. You do have to drill a hole, but only a relatively small one—5/8 or 3/4", as I recall.

[AE5CP]

FBOM on the 710G, I have one, love the shit out of it.

I mostly use a magmount with a cheap-o tram 2/440 antenna when I use it in the car. Quite often I use it at home with my 2/440 J-Pole on the privacy fence around 8 feet off the dirt. It does get GPS lock in the house, so that has not been an issue. It does take a while to get GPS lock if you power it off for any length of time. I found that if it is powered off for a couple of seconds and then back on, it will regain lock fairly quickly (5-10 seconds), but otherwise it will take 5-10 minutes sometimes.

[K0RGR]

I never drill holes for VHF mobile antennas. Lip-mounts work well if you are careful to scrape the paint off under the screws that hold it in place. I have also added long strips of foil tape under the screws to provide a good counterpoise in 'tough' cases. You'll need to examine the vehicle carefully, most minivans will work fine with a lip mount, but others won't. They usually include a short run of very small teflon coax that is much easier to pass through the rear window gasket without creating a leak. A lip mount might also work on the hood of the minivan, similar to what I use on my pickup truck, and the cable doesn't have to pass through the door that way, either.

I have an older D710, and I really like it. It's easy to reprogram from a computer - when I travel, I set up multiple memory banks to scan for the areas I'm visiting, and I have a small 'library' of repeater files I can load into the rig quickly.

[KØWVM]

Thanks for the input guys! I am probably going to revisit magmounts and see what I can come up with...

[N8YX]

If you do an NMO mount properly they're the best choice for such an installation. I'm going to use two of them to install antennas on my Legacy: One will hold a 2/440/1.2GHz setup while the other will hold a 10/6/220/902 arrangement. That last one will be the result of the combination of a Diamond CR-8900 and a Harvest CR-8900B with modifications to the 75cm section. Hopefully it'll work as intended.