Bringing this back up.... For some reason my SWR's are still in the high 2's (2.7ish) which is OK, but indicates there's a deficiency somewhere. My cable is properly terminated, is 18ft long, my mount is grounded, but I think I have insufficient ground plane still. I'm mounted off the front bumper and am running a ground wire directly to the frame rail. Everything checks out with the ohmmeter.

I'm thinking that, for whatever reason, the hood isn't acting as a good ground plane. Thinking of changing over to a NGP cable & antenna. Thoughts?