NMO Antenna Bracket for 2nd Gen

Hey guys got a couple PMs about this so figured I'd make the information out there and searchable:

A lot of people were asking me where I got my custom fender bracket for the 2nd gen. There might be more than one company, but this is all I've found, and it happens to be local to me, so all the better.

The company is called West Crystal:
http://www.westcrystal.com

The antenna bracket they make for the Tacomas is the AT12. It uses stock bolts plus some sheet metal screws you put in etc to fit.

http://www.westcrystal.com/products/hardware/at12.htm

I am a communications technician and install a lot of radios. We use these guys for everything, and they make a bracket for damn near anything.

http://www.westcrystal.com/products/hardware/vehicles.htm

They also make brackets for mounting lots of other stuff, plus external horns etc..

http://www.westcrystal.com/products/hardware/hardware.htm

I have no affiliation with them other than I enjoy using their stuff.

Enjoy!

 

I had a standard fits all vehicles mount and it scratched the paint off the hood. Wish I had found this sooner.

 

Ya I think the PO did the same thing. I just used the wire wheel on my drill, got bare metal on the edge, and touch-up-painted it.

Fun times.

 

What does NMO stand for?

 

NMO=New Motorola as MO=(old) Motorola The NMO standard came out around 1970.

http://ravtrack.com/GPStracking/the-versatile-nmo-antenna-mount/147/

 

I am a Ham Radio operator. At present, I am using a magnet mount for my UHF/VHF antenna. Don't want to mount it in the front. My truck only has 183 miles on it so I don't want to use the drill. Chris and J How did you route the coax in.

 

I just cut a small slit in the main harness gromet and routed my wires through there. No issues.

You always need to put a screw in for your bracket, it wont hurt anything. Can put a bit of anti-seize on there to help corrosion. I spray fluid film on the stuff. Goes on like wd40, but then dries into a waxy like coating. Works great.

 

Thanks. Will work on that tomorrow.

 

DONT use a drill in the gromet by the way. It is very easy for the rubber to yank on the drill bit and can get it into the main harness. That is a very time consuming and/or expensive repair.

 

I used a pocket knife and poked a hole through the main grommet. I have both a 1.2 GHz coax and some #10 power cable coming through.

So far as drilling a hole, you bought the truck for yourself not the next owner., your choice though. I have currently one NMO roof mount for 900 MHz and soom will install two more, one for the GPS antenna and the other for 220 MHz. I bought a NMO hole saw for that purpose, works wonderfully. Hole plugs are made of you want to remove the mounts on trade in, most dealers ignore those as they have no intention on repairing those holes anyway.

The roof mount out preforms the mag mounts as it has a great ground and no roof scratches result from the roof mount but mag mounts do scratch up a roof.

Anyway good luck with your antennas. catch you on the air maybe. I run HF through 1.2 GHz in the truck.

I like the Tacoma Fender mounts and will be ordering a couple of them, thanks for posting the information

K8IZ

 

They are meant to work in a single location I think. Uses a stock bolt. Not sure how well it will work in another location as the fender-wall height gets smaller the closer to the front you go. They have a ton of brackets though, and I just make something work.

Can always use a standard one and use a vice etc and try to bend it to fit.

 

THANK YOU.

I have been looking for one of these so long I was planning to make one from scratch.

 

Does this bracket make the antenna level with the ground?

 

Also are you able to post a picture of how far up or down on the hood it gets mounted?

 

id like to see a picture of this mount as well.

was looking at this as an option since i know what it looks like on a tacoma..

http://www.rightchannelradios.com/hood-roof-cb-mounts-83/adjustable-universal-hood-mount-233.html

 

That looks ugly as sin.

Plus its CB only, and I guess its used in the USA more, but no one ever uses CB in Canada any more. Its all VHF.

Sorry I never bothered taking a picture of it, here is the best one I seem to have.

 

here are mine, Mount is made for left side only. Needed to drill a hole for right side mounting, used machine screws and washers to level them with the cowl. Did not want to remove and replace NMO mounts that day will do that later this summer as it does involve some soldering.

 

I found a couple of things about this mount:

1. It is a nice stainless steel piece, but it comes with rough outer edges that could damage paint. It is worthwhile to go over it with a file and/or sandpaper before installing.

2. One of the two vertical mount holes is there for the plastic rivet that holds the edge of the cowl down. The hole in the mount is too small for the rivet...

3. If installed with just the bolt and two horizontal machine screws, the top of the mount touches the edge of the paint right at the edge of the fender in such a way that it will really tend to damage the paint. I used two stainless washers under each machine screw, which brings the mount out enough to be 'centered' in the body channel. The problem here is that the mount does not match the contour of the fender as well as it should. Still better than a universal mount, though.

4. The hole is not 3/4", it is 13/16". This is so that some of the non-standard (import) NMO mounts will still fit, but it makes a loose fit for a genuine NMO mount. I used a scrap of small zip tie cut down and trimmed as a 'spacer' to keep the mount centered as I tightened it.

5. There is enough give in the fender at that location that I'm a little leery of installing my SBB5-NMO on the mount. There is a lot of flex in the fender sheet metal when you bend the antenna left and right. I don't know if there is such a thing as a dual-band antenna with a nice flexible antenna shaft like my mono-band Larsen NMO-150.

 

Does anyone know if these will fit a 2012?