well my trucks mobile antenna for my ft-8900 got vandalized along with a stolen cb antenna and slashed tires. They bent it in many different shapes. Does anyone happen to know the cheapest source for a quad band antenna? or perhaps have one they are willing to part with...

Sounds like you pissed someone off.

HRO usually has good deals on antennas.

thats whats weird about this whole thing, i havent pissed anyone off. as far as i know its a random attach on me by someone from class. Ill have to check them out and see how much one is. thanks for the info.

I'm looking to get a setup very much like what you have: FT-8900 and a quad band antenna. What kind of antenna did you have? I have been looking at Comet's new UHV-4 antenna that was specially designed for the 8900. I have read 2 good reviews about it but since it's still pretty new there aren't many yet. The UHV-4 is about $120 last time I checked, if I recall correctly.

I want to mount my antenna on the roof of the cab of my truck, right in the middle so it has a good ground plane. Should I attempt to do this myself, or is there a place I can go that will install ham radios and antennas? My dealer said they normally recommend CarToys, but I want to be sure that whoever does install it knows how to route all the power and rf cables correctly (i.e. power right off the battery, NOT from cig plug; and RF coax away from internal vehicular wiring harnesses, no sharp kinks, etc). Obviously I am looking to do a permanent installation, I don't want to put a mag mount.

Back to your comment... the UHV-4 is the only quad band antenna I know of, there are some triband 6/2/440 as well if you can live without 10m for a while. Like I said I believe it is around $120 at HRO.