Clean VHF/CB radio installs

Only hard part is finding a decent spot to mount it because of the size

 

I have a pretty big one too, I 3d printed a mount and didn’t even drill it. It has a lip on the back that slides under the trim. Holds in place great

 

How did you convert the cobra female plug to a male plug?

 

I opened up the connector and swapped them. I had the panel mount and then an extender, so I just unsoldered the wires on the Cobra piece and swapped them with the right end on the extender and redid the connections. Everything seems to work fine. I asked for a radio check and got almost 8 miles line of sight per my reply.

The only downfall is technically of something metal were to go across the pins you could short and have a fire risk. I've been looking for a 8-pin DIN cover to be safe.

 

That came out great

 

Yeah I’m proud of it

 

On my current setup in the 4Runner, I placed the extension speaker on top of the all weather floor mat for the backseat, and put a piece of metal underneath it. Basically making a sandwich with the metal on the bottom, the rubber floor mat in the middle, and the speaker on the top. On the very bottom of the metal I ran some velcro, to keep the whole thing from shifting. That velcro latches onto the carpet that is underneath the rubber mat. This way the speaker is pointing straight up from the floor, shooting right into your ear, and there's no holes that need to be drilled except a couple holes poked through the rubber floor mat.

 

Since I sold my Taco I kind of forgot about this thread until someone mentioned me in a post earlier.

Not sure how applicable this is to the Taco ( I kind of forget the interior setup), but this is my current 4R install: Icom dual band Ham and President CB. Icom is on a RAM mount on top of the console with the radio guts under the pass seat. CB is in the console pocket, but that took some chopping of ductwork behind there. Antennas are NMO mounts on the edges of the hood, one on each side. Pretty tidy setup.

Not sure what happened to the pics I posted in this thread from my Taco install. Some appear to have vanished.

 

Question for guys running antenna mounts that are powder coated (ex. Relentless Fab Hood bracket)

It looks like no one is running any kind of ground to the chassis. Are you just grinding down to expose metal at the antennas contact point? or what?

 

I'm using that bracket and didn't grind anything. I have ground strap I intend to implement but as is, I can hit repeaters 50 + miles away and am told signal is clear. Haven't actually checked swr yet though...

 

The sunglass holder is where I keep my garage door opener ☺

 

How do you like the 520XL? I was given one but have yet to set it up and I plan on it very soon. How did you run the antenna cable from the bed to radio and which coax did you go with (length, brand, etc)?

 

Prototype 2.0. I'll let you guys be the judge on clean-ness here.

It sucks losing the storage, but let's face it, it's just a hole where stuff goes to die. Mine was full of old mail and pens with no ink.

The head is mounted to the left to allow me to see past the shifter and provide some space for a couple small toggles in the future. In true ham form, all materials were sourced from the junk bin. The plate is some 3mm(?) Plastruct I had from an old RC project. I used some vacuum hose around the edges to keep it from rattling. The standoffs are made out of some rusty 3mm rod. Gravity holds everything in place. The paint is by Krylon.

 

Just an update FWIW. Tuned my antenna and got SWR to 1:1 on 145.000 mhz.

 

Is that a Relentless NMO mount?

I want to get one but I don’t even see them on their site.

 

It’s their ditch light mount that I drilled out to 3/4” for the NMO. I don’t think they make the antenna mount for 3rd gens.

 

Is it pretty stable? Not wobbly?

I might do something similar. I saw in another thread what someone was calling a Relentless NMO. Looked just like the hood mount but had a larger welded piece to it fit for an NMO. Maybe a custom item.

 

It’s rock solid. One other thing to note is the bracket doesn’t sit completely level so I had to put it in a vice and bend it out so the antenna didn’t tilt forward. That seems to be true with every brand ditch light bracket though.

 

Installed mine a few days ago, came out pretty good! This seems to be the way to go for a stealth install in the 3rd gens. I made my own bracket so I could mount the antenna in the bed with my bed cover on still.

I'm running with the Uniden 520XL, 3' Firestik and a Pyle PA speaker under the hood.