I get the weight savings in the aluminum skin on the Ford trucks. Is there any place on the roof where they have bonded a steel plate under the skin so you can mount a magnetic mount antenna? If not, how are y’all mounting antennas?
I hadn't thought about this. My Wilson 5000 would not be happy.
I had a 102" whip on rear of chevy conversion van. It was actually about 116 as i had to extend to get really good SWR due to the reflection of the body where it ran so close on the way up.
You can do short hole mount but who like holes!! or put on rear bumper. Do new trucks stull have rear bumpers? Are they metal?
Could do a frame mount extension standoff coming out under rear tail light.
Could make up a metal plate and bracket to drill two holes and mount an top of bed rail right in middle behind back window.
Be advised if you are not big into SWR if you are using this for 10 or 11 meters that when there is any whip down below the top of vehicle and with 2 feet of metal it reflects or "ground planes" it or something and raises SWR. I found that increasing the whip in 2 inch increments brings it down.
I use an old piece of same size whip and get steel cable crimp connectors and barely squeeze so it will hold the two together so I can test for best SWR. The overlap doesn't make any difference. You can have a 62 inch whip and a 20 inch piece and overlap them 10 inches in the middle and you are raising tip to 72 inches or have shorter piece and overlap less and still get 72 inches and get same SWR.