Wideband Car Antenna Mount

Along the way of deciding to finally drill the holes and mount real antennas on my car for my ham radios, I came across an interesting NMO mount from Radial/Larsen that supports microwave frequencies.

I used a regular NMO mount for my 2m/70cm antenna for voice communications, dead center in the roof. I then drilled a second ¾″ hole for the Larsen NMOHF mount. This mount supports frequencies from 27 MHz to 6 GHz, so I can use it for VHF and UHF ham antennas, or for 802.11a/b antennas, either for Wi-Fi access or for ham radio networking. Above UHF frequencies, you remove the center pin and insulator to expose a coax-like connector. I like this conversion capability, and of the slim profile compared with the more typical N type mounts used for Wi-Fi antennas, but am curious to see how the losses will compare to an N mount fed with LMR-400.

So far, Larsen makes two 2.4GHz antennas for the microwave configuration of the mount: the NMO5E2400B whip and the LPT2400NMOHF (a so-called transit antenna, with a radome).