So now that I think I've figured out my radio, I need to figure out where to mount the antenna.  I think I'm going to get the Larson NMO mount as seen here : http://www.radialllarsen.com/products_mobile_5.htm

It was recommended by another 4WD friend who said he's never have another antenna without some sort of spring mount.  After messing with it that seems like a good idea.

Now onto my options.  The guy at the radio store (and the other fella who recommends the Larson) say I should mount it to the hood via the "L" brackets.  Seems simple enough.  My other option is to mount it to the roofrack with a swivel mount.  It's mounted higher there, although the guy at HRO assured me there would be little gain with this, however it will have to be rotated down quite a bit to clear the trees in the bush around here.

I'm leaning towards the hood mount idea as it's simple and I know it works.  Where did everybody else mount there antenna's?

Larry, I have a Diamond NR770HB antenna using a Diamond K540 mount on the SD rack.  IMHO, anyone that says that having an antenna mounted on the hood doesn't lose any performance compared to mounting it on the top of the rack is giving you bad information.  Craig can tell you that his antenna that's mounted on his spare performs worse than when it was mounted on his rack.

The nice thing about that antenna is that it can be lowered manually.  When I get to an area that's heavily wooded, I just open the sunroof, reach up and hinge the antenna over so that it is out of the way.  When its open again, I just pop it back up.  If the woods are really dense, you can always get a small rubber antenna and just use that.  It's a good idea to keep a backup antenna anyways.