Alee891's Radiant Red Build & BS

Always loved the look of the softtopper when I had it... but damn that shit looks 10000x better with radiant red!

 

Thanks bud, glad I was able to take it off your hands! Only complaint I have is cleaning it. Damn they are a messy bitch to clean/apply protectant.

 

yeah and it really sucks because the original owner didn't do it, so you're already behind the fading/damage.

 

Very true. I plan on getting a new rear window at some point. I cracked the plastic this winter while opening it, so it's a complete loss now. I'm just using the mesh window as it's been pretty mild this year. Back in the fall I washed it meticulously and it looked pretty damn good. Just not looking forward to doing it again haha

 

when I contacted them to replace the clips and frame, they told me 65 to replace the rear window plastic. and actually the mesh works fairly well to keep snow out, and even rain (while driving).

 

So clean and then that Clif bar wrapper ruined it.

 

Haha! Had to get breakfast in one of the days this week.

 

That looks sweet

 

Thanks bud!

 

On the APRS discussion... what I read on another forum a while ago is that there are not a lot of towers that support it (or catch the signal, which could be due to the 5w handheld not transmitting far enough where a mounted unit might?).

I've messed around with it a little and didn't have much luck. it would track me while in the city, and track me on my tablet, but would not push it out to the towers/website. And I think you now have to pay for the APRSDroid app, and since it didn't seem to work, dont want to pay for it to test it again.

The last times I tried it, once was up to Yankee, and then another I let it do its thing from here up to steamboat. I think it would randomly catch a tower and update the aprs.fi site, but it was rare during the whole trip.

 

You'd have to look in your own area to see if towers are there and the infrastructure is there.

Out here, plenty of them and i get tracked pretty much everywhere i go all the time.

APRS can be had for free. Its nice to pay as then you get auto updates and its nice to support the cause. But you don't have to and can download the BIN file straight from the site.

You're radio and antenna setup might not be working great either.

 

Have you found that the magnet mount antenna helps with Tx distance much over the stock handheld antenna of your BaoFeng?

I thought about getting one, but unless you think its amazing I'll just wait for a mobile radio and mount in the center of my cab with a NMO mount, similar to @Blackdawg did on Igor.

CB will probably just get put on the front hood/fender. I'd rather the ham get the best ground plane available (roof).

More ham BS here

 

When it was not working well, i was only running the baofeng itself with the stubby antenna. It may work better now that i have the magnet mount.

I would like to try it again with a newer tablet and the mag mount antenna.

The external antennas do help quite a bit. It was either a white rim trip or one to nw co that a few rigs had a variety of antennas and the better antennas could hear/transmit much further.

 

From what little use I've experienced, the mag mount is far superior to the handheld antenna. I don't think the Baofeng holds a flame to a mobile radio, though. I chose to get handheld radios to introduce myself to HAM and get familiar with everything on a trail communications basis. If I find myself using it more than just on trail runs, I'll likely get a Yaesu or Icom. I'm sure my opinions will change once licensed, too.

 

Yeah I'd definitely recommend getting licensed. Technician isn't too hard to get at all.

 

oh, yea an external antenna that you can tune is without at doubt the MOST important part of radio.

Most repeater towers run at 10-20w. usually 15w. But they have MASSIVE antennas that are properly grounded and way up high and tuned very very well. This is what gets them the 20-50mile range. Not power.

Power is logarithmic in radio. So you need to see a huge power change to merit anything. The antenna is much more important.

Which is also why it it better to just drill in a permeant antenna to the roof to get the best grounding plane.

 

Managed to work on the rig today despite having a list of chores to do around the house. Managed to knock those out and let the dogs stretch their legs all before 1:00 pm, so I decided to turn my attention to a few outstanding items I've been meaning to address.

Started the day with sound deadening the doors. This was my first time handling any sort of product, so I figured I'd tackle the doors and see how it went.

I started with the passenger side, removed the door panel and factory weather stripping. It was a dirty bitch underneath the panels.





Found out the previous owner installed some somewhat decent speakers. Neat.



The passenger side went smoothly. I installed deadener on both the inner and outer panels to help reduce outside noise. Haven't had a chance to drive around yet but there is a noticeable difference in sound just from closing the door.




The drivers side had a little more attention to detail. I put a bit more on the inner panel since I had l it. If there is a noticeable difference I'll rip back into the passenger side and clean it up. For now I'm not going to bother.




After the sound deadener I got to the project I truly had my sights set on - installing the power inverter. It was a fast and easy install. I chose to install the inverter under the passenger seat because I had no other option... I have an amp under the driver. I ran the wires under the floorboard trim and to the fuse block. Pretty straight forward and looking forward to using it on camping trips.




Lastly, I installed a detachable Sirius satellite radio that was discarded from one of my work trucks. I buried the wire between the back panel and rear seats, then ran the antenna wire in line with the inverter wire and pulled it through the dash. I don't have a permanent mount yet, but I'm thinking I'll just Velcro it to the dash once I pick some up for the inverter to stay still.

 

What type of amperage does the inverter pull?

 

No clue. It's just a small 400 watt inverter. Only plan on using it to charge a computer or relating small device as needed.

 

400 watt inverter at full power on a 12V system will draw about 33 or 34 amps. It will produce only 3.3 to 3.4 amps on the AC side.