Is that wad of cable the feeder for the antenna? I have done temporary installs with more care... Surprised the top whip wasn't simply "bent to fit"... Seen that a time or two. For obvious RF safety and propagation issues I have a really big problem with installing antennas inside the occupied portion of a motor vehicle in the first place when there are really cool methods of effectively transmitting and receiving the RF "outside the box" without the "antenna" being visible. You know, cavity slots hidden in luggage racks... DDRR's, etc... Those "unmarked" SUV's used by "agencies of the state" need a bit of the "redneck" treatment to make them "plausible" as anything BUT the typical (insert agency here) "unmarked" SUV...

Pacific County

Grommet??? What's Thaaaat??? (Expletives, several, come to mind) Let us say for the sake of "argument" that, after tearing the whole shop apart one was unable to locate a "proper" grommet but still wanted to prevent a significant electrical fire one might... MIGHT... consider several layers of electrical tape around the wire, sufficient to prevent movement of the wire in the hole?????? Falls into the category of "doing SOMETHING even if it's wrong"... and a few cents spent on the electrical tape and the time to install it preventing the destruction of a new vehicle? Priceless ;)

you should see their KO peak radio site.

Reminds me of the agencies that used their fleet mechanics to install lighting/communications.

And in the absence of "split loom", and doing this in the "fleet mechanic" shop, rubber fuel line hose, sliced lengthwise would "gitter done"... If passing a large wire through a large enough hole, then a chunk of dead coolant hose could be similarly sliced lengthwise, slipped over the wire, ziptied or electrical taped into place, and together with the fuel line on the sheetmetal, you got wire protection as good if not better than a factory wire pass-through, for next to no money in material and but a few minutes with a sharp knife to create. A squidge of RTV gasket maker on the engine side and it becomes moisture/gas tight!!!

Contrary to rumors to the contrary, "this ain't rocket science" ;)

There is a crowd that believes that if you correctly ground a site that only then will the lightning come. That R56 is only good for Motorola to make money on. (I believe thats what they use their APX portables to do.)

There are certain counties and many installers in this nation that do things to later increase the number of service calls and keep them with cash in their pockets. I still compete with county radio shops for commercial business. I thought that Wa state voted to take the state out of business of competing with commercial ventures but thats another story.

Last thing I ever want see is a fire truck burning to the ground due to bad install practices but its something I have seen. Its not a pretty site.

We had an automotive repair shop there and the mechanic told me that the older trucks had generators that made volts and the
newer trucks had alternators that made amps.