8900 YEASU INSTALL ROOF DRILLED

I installed my old yeasu 8900 into the Tacoma today. The radio is mounted to a lido mount that bolts to the passenger seat. I swap this radio back and forth with my tow rig. It would be much cleaner to mount the face plate on the dash and radio under seat with a divorce kit. The power wire was connected using a weather pack plug.

Here is a link to Breedlove’s nmo page.

https://www.breedlovemounts.com/nmo-mounts.html


Drill baby drill!



I used a Breedlove 3 inch nmo mount in the roof for the antenna mount. Roofs provide the best ground plain, especially when using 6m, but also with 2m and 70cm.



I partially removed the headliner to allow enough clearance to drill,mount, and connect the Breedlove. I planned on going in front of the center cab light but the Toyota gods blessed us with a glued on reinforcement channel there.



Remove the factory antenna wire harness and bolt also so the headliner can droop a little more.


I removed the visors, both a pillars, the front light panel, passenger b pillar upper plastic, rear passenger c pillar upper plastic, rear grab handle, and the passenger clothes hanger.


Then I centered the mount on the roof and drilled through, that steel is THIN!

New bit drills fast.

https://youtu.be/HxYJZutCM-g


Daylight, ohh crap!


Here is the Breedlove mount installed.


And a shot of the yeasu mounted. It’s a little wobbly. I will secure it the the stereo trim to stop that.


I put a 2m70cm antenna on and was able to hit a repeater that at least 40 miles away. The station was several thousand feet above me. I’ll tune and check reading on the antenna in a couple weeks once my friend is back from Yellowstone, he has a meter.

I plan on running a tri band to use 6 meter up in Los Padres and I usually carry a couple of spare antennas with me. The mount is as solid as can be.

PB

 

That looks like it would kill some time in traffic. I like the antenna setup out of the way.

 

Nicely done!

 

Thanks

And thanks.

 

I can’t drill my roof! You have more guts than me. I use a magnet mount for my Ham, but I hate the cable running down the back window. You might have motivated me to drill the roof.

 

DO IT!