I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building. I just got permission
to put up a vertical antenna on the roof with 1 restriction - the antenna
can't be more than 10 feet tall.

I can put radials on the roof. Another problem (maybe) - I can't have
a key to access the roof so once the antenna is up, it needs to be a
"set it and forget it" type. Cost is an issue.

Also, the building is VERY passive to RF - I get good performance
with a 10 meter mag mount on the inside of my A/C wall unit. I also
have a 2m/440 mag mount there and it works well. I also have a
GPS unit (Garmin Vista) which works quite well indoors, despite
it's patch antenna (low gain). For low banding I have a 153'2" dipole
wrapped around the building. It's a good performer on 20 and
lower but performance falls off above 15 megs. On 10 m, my mag
mount antenna indoors performs better.

I'll be running a Yaesu FT-817 with a homebrew 40w amp and a
LDG Z100 tuner. My main requirements as far as operating bands
are 20 meters. I'd like to get 17m too if I could.

I'm thinking a Hustler 20m mobile antenna with a long base rod. I
considered a screwdriver antenna but cost & maintenance rules
that out.

Here's my parts list:

Hustler RM-20S 20 meter super resonator $28.99
Hustler MO-3 54" rigid base mast $23.99
Hustler RVM Mount $20.99
--------
Total $73.97

Any ideas?

73's de Ken KG0WX