RB-50 HD Magnet Mount

I had the old trusty Radio Shack Scanner Antenna, if you've been around long enough, you know the one. Actually, I had about 5 of them over the years, between my father and I. We would piece them together over the years, as we kept them on our vehicles, and constantly getting pinched in door jams and trunks would fray the wires over time.Honestly I got pretty good at fixing the wires, but it was really time to find an alternative. There is only so much wire you can cut off and splice.With radio shack being long gone, I had a hard time finding one that would actually do the job, I live in a pretty rural area, and asking an antenna to get reception of upto 10 or 15 miles away seemed like a task only fit for a radio shack antenna.I finally stumbled upon this one and have been running it for several years now, the cable has held up, and the magnet has only let go a few times. I'm getting the same reception I always have, and am very impressed with the quality of the material it is made out of.

I can't install an antenna on the roof of my car. I have a panoramic sunroof and a roof rack where I haul my canoe. I used this to install on my rear lift gate and it was super easy. There were some minor mounting issues with the thickness of the vehicles metal but I was able to find a spot that fit well. It seems to be holding up so far to the elements but we'll will have to see. I will update if needed.

UPDATE 2023-11-05 - Determined that the magnet is just fine. It's the anti scratch cover that was the problem. After removing that (and saving, just in case) the mount grips just fine, and made the ~200 mile trip with no issues at all. I strongly suggest to the manufacturer that the anti scratch be modified if possible so it doesn't impede the magnet strength.*****INITIAL REVIEW 2023-11-03 - Waiting for the TB-320A antenna to show up today. It will be installed, and then it's off on a road trip for the weekend. That will be the first real test of this base. Ratings will be adjusted and the review edited as I continue testing.VALUE FOR MONEY: 5/5. To get a decent looking mag mount base for this price is something that hasn't really happened for me since the heyday of Radio Shack in the 80s and 90s. (Pay attention - you'll hear Radio Shack come up again in a bit.)DURABILITY: 3/5. I haven't road and load tested the base yet, score will be adjusted after I've done so.STURDINESS: 3/5. I haven't road and load tested the base yet, score will be adjusted after I've done so.My first impression of just the base alone is that it looks nice, it's a decent price, and it should work nicely...but I have one specific concern already, and that's the strength of the magnet itself.Compared to my now almost-ancient Radio Shack dual-band mobile mag mount antenna, the magnet strength seems noticeably weaker, far more so than could be accounted for due to just size difference. Once the Radio Shack base is stuck, it's STUCK, regardless of the car surface condition, and it won't move without at least some effort.This base, though, seems far too easy to move around just by hand, even without an antenna attached. I'm hoping that perhaps it's just my initial placement or that it was the car surface which was causing it - I've moved it to a better location that I wiped down and dried prior to attaching, so we'll see how that works out.I will probably be getting a ground plane attachment to test as well, as a comparison to using just the base itself. Stay tuned. 😎

. It has way more strength then the 2 "name brand" ones Ihave and a far better price

Had this for sometime now and finally got around to attempting to install. Darn near ruined my Diamond triband as could not get to stop cross-threading. Finally had to ruin the mount in order to get the antenna off. Junk, don't buy one.

I bought this to use with mobile HAM radio setup. The magnet did not come with a rubber protector, but that's fine since I usually take them off anyway. I was only able to get up to speeds of 50-60mph during an event I was recently supporting, but the mount (paired with a DIAMOND SG7500 antenna) held great and my Yaesu FTM-500D was able to get through to the repeaters I was connecting to with no problems at all. The NMO cap is a bonus too, which will be great when the mag mount is not in use. Overall I am very pleased with this purchase.

This is a solid lip mount overall, but mine came with a bad ground connection. Right away, I noticed high SWR readings—around 2.3 to 2.45. I tested continuity with a multimeter and found there was no conductivity between the lip mount (where it attaches to the car) and the NMO connector where the antenna screws in.The issue was the paint—it was preventing a good electrical connection. I disassembled the mount piece by piece and sanded down the paint at every contact point. After that, the ground connection was solid, and my SWR dropped to a much better level.If you’re planning to use this for HAM or GMRS, I recommend testing continuity before use. Once fixed, it performs well—but it shouldn’t require that much prep work straight out of the box.

I bought this to attach a dual band antenna to a rental car. This has low profile and a very strong hold. In fact, it was very difficult to remove before returning the car.