Having tried internal antennas and a variety of low profile, homemade versions, I can safely say that you will be disappointed. The other concern with anything in the passenger compartment is RF energy frying on you (the passengers) or some of the electronics.

Description

1. Low-profile cavity-backed crossed-slot antenna with a single-probe feed designed for 2.34-GHz satellite radio applications Abstract: This paper describes a novel, low-profile antenna for the satellite digital audio radio service.
2. This month I decided to build a 2 meter 5/4 wave antenna. This antenna is unique in that it is enclosed entirely in 3/4' PVC which makes the design a little more.

Benefits:

• Rugged construction for years of reliable service
• Low noise floor picks up weak signals better than comparable wire or plastic enclosed antennas
• Wide bandwidth, (4+ MHz across the 2 meter band). No need to retune
• Omnidirectional RF radiation pattern is balanced for communicating with stations at or slightly above the horizon line.
• Pretuned and ready to go for the 2 meter amateur radio band

KB9VBR 2 Meter J-Pole Antenna Specifications:

• Constructed out of 1/2 inch copper tubing
• Overall length 69 inches
• radiator 58 inches
• matching stub 19 inches
• Choice of SO-239 or N Female connector is soldered on at the point of lowest SWR
• Omnidirectional radiation pattern
• Gain is about 3dbi or about 2.5dbd compared to a 1/4 wave ground plane

There are literally hundreds of antennas on the market, what makes this antenna any better than some of the higher priced you’ve seen or experienced? The simple answer is that it just plain works great. Dollar for dollar, the KB9VBR J-Pole antenna may be the best value on the amateur radio antenna market.

Dual Band Performance in a single antenna:

Each antenna is individually tested and tuned for optimum performance on their respective bands. The two meter antenna is tuned to 146MHZ (1.2:1 SWR or less at 146MHz), and the SWR is 1.4:1 or less throughout the entire 2 meter band. This antenna also works great as a dual band antenna. The antenna will tune up on 70cm for excellent dual band performance.

Low Profile 2 Meter Slot Antenna Preamplifier

A fellow blogger, Brick O’Lore, wrote me with a question that I don’t have a good answer for. Would anyone care to weigh in on this?

Low Profile 2 Meter Slot Antenna Booster

I’d like to add a 2M mobile rig in my wife’s car. Sounds simple enough, but the trick is that I need something that is as small as possible and will have a really neat installation. I’d prefer to have a mobile rig that I can wire in (power and an antenna) and see the display (versus cobbling together something with an HT). A detachable faceplate/remote would be fine. I want 2M to hit the repeaters – any other bands or advanced features would be a bonus, but not required. The car is a 7 year-old Audi A4 and there is very little room in the footwells. It does have a neat feature – a drawer under each of the front seats. So what’s small and installs such that it will score well on the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) scale?

Low Profile 2 Meter Slot Antennas

My suspicion is that there are a lot of good choices — and none are going to be particularly “affordable.” If you have a photo of your creative radio installation that might help others, send it to me (editor at amateurradio dot com) and I’ll attach it to this post. I think that would be especially helpful. If not, your insight and tips via comments are always very much appreciated!