Just wanted to start a thread on this subject. I remember seeing a few pictures of people who have mounted various radio Mobile transceivers in thier trucks. But i cant find them now. What better than a place to keep it all... I am looking for info on how people installed antennas, CBs, Ham band type stuff in their trucks on 12m, 11m, 10m, 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm bands etc. RF problems? Gound loops? RF choke solutions? I just got done putting a CB in mine (EDIT: Scratch that, now have a 10m radio installed, i have since yanked the CB which is now mounted as a base station in the shop). Ill get some pics and start this off later tonight. I am noticing that out of everything in the truck (my truck) the radiator fan is by far a very noisy fella. In the mean time, feel free to chime in...
Ok finally had a spare moment to get some pictures of my setup. Still have some more work to do, but the current setup works pretty swell.... Here is the truck from a distance. I chose the 102" steel whip from radio shack. It’s supposed to be really good for 11m,10m performance. Kinda makes the truck look like a giant radio controlled toy? hehehe Here is the power setup. I had a random battery isolator in the shop, so i wired up a second battery that i bought from checker auto parts for like 19.00$. Please note. The install of this isolator almost warrants a thread of its own. There were a few gremlins i had to expel when doing this install. Particularly, the charge wire coming from the alternator split off to the ignition b/4 it reached the stock battery. THis ignition wire had to be traced down and cut out. The split needed to happen after the isolator, not b4. More on that later... At the moment, everything electrical runs off the lawn mower battery cept for the starter which has the stock battery dedicated to it now. so if i talk too much while parked or leave the lights on, i can still start the truck! OK here is the custom antenna mount i did. Had to drill a hole into the cab to make this work. Finally, the gear and internal mount, I installed a 12ga steel plate across the top of the inside of the truck ceiling and mounted everything to it. This made the coax real short. Bringing power to the ceiling was a snap too. I’ll have to get some pics of that too some time. Enjoy.... Critique and comments welcome... (for you neat freaks out there... yes i know i need to spend some quality time doing some cable management, but it just hasent happend)
Check my profile pics and albums for a quick peek at mine. I installed a 2m Yaesu in mine, I put in a "extra" fuse panel box under the passenger seat, direct feed from the battery through a circuit breaker, then a couple of fuses. I ran the antenna feed under the front mat, around the seat, then drilled a hole in the back of the cab... black RTV sealant and a rubber grommet sealed it up nicely... I use a small magnetic mount antenna on my mini beast, because I have to remove/lower it when I load it in my trailer, not too mention low profile trees . On the last elk hunt when I was on top of the mountain (a little over 10,000 feet) I hit a repeater about 60 miles away. I was at full power of 65 watts for my radio, but did make contact and have a short conversation. I will post some pictures in a couple of days of the whole set up. So far I dont have any RF issues with the simple setup.... knock on wood. Good xmit and rcv quality.
I would really like to get the Yaesu FT 8900R dual head / quad band radio, but till i get a little further along w/ my Ham license, im stuck in 11m world. oh ya, and hit the lotto too.
