These are pictures of my DIY ham radio Tarheel antenna mount for a 2004 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck.

I built this from steel bar purchased at Home Depot. The bolts are stainless steel one quarter twenty. I did not do a good job of painting it. Ideally it would have been made from stainless steel, but that is a bit harder to find. I have recently discovered http://www.metalsupermarkets.com/. They are an amazing chain of stores that sell all kinds of metal in small quantities for home inventors.

Notice the bare unpainted metal. I kept all the contact surfaces free of paint so there would be an electrical ground to the car body, from the antenna.

Here are the holes I drilled in my Tacoma pickup. I made a dummy out of cardboard to get the measurements right before I started cutting metal. When this antenna was mounted, I had scraped off all the paint where the antenna was mounted on the truck for electrical ground. I have since removed the mount and repainted the truck. No holes show from the outside of the truck.

If I remount this in the future, I will use a better paint. I hurried the paint job, and it peeled as you can see in the photos. I took my Tarheel antenna off because I got bored with ham radio. I sold all my ham gear and put the money toward my new hobby: DSLR cinematography.