Power for CB /GMRS Radio

Hey Guys,
I've looked a round a bit, but haven't found what i'm looking for. Curious if anyone has hard wired their radio? I know a lot of people use the accessory power cigarette lighter adapter, but I kinda hate having wires all over the place. Do you guys have a clean solution for wiring up a radio to accessory power? Would you just run it right to the fuse block? Sorry for the dumb question, but figured some of you would have the answer. Thanks

 

I ran mine straight to the battery. With a fuse of course.

 

I ran a fuse expansion tap from ignition. My CB and my 2 way are hard wired

 

Same

 

So its on all the time unless you turn it off? I was hoping for something tied to accessories. Maybe I'll try the tap into something off the ignition
or just deal with the wire. I only use it every few weeks.

 

Correct. You can tap an accessory fuse but it's not an issue with it being wired directly to the battery. I've left it on overnight with no issues.

I like it being ran to the battery so it gets 'clean' power and mainly so I can use it while the truck is off.

 

Just remember with newer vehicles, don't go to the battery's ground directly. Tap the ground where the battery's ground connects to the vehicle. I believe it is on the left side just behind the battery.

 

If you search for specific Midland models you'll find a bunch of good threads about this, e.g, MXT575 or MXT275.

There's basically two schools of thought here:

• Direct to the battery provides the least interference and best SNR. You risk flattening your battery if you forget to turn it off but it's a pretty slim chance.
• Wired to an under the hood electrical system, e.g., sPOD or Blue Sea. Potentially more RFI/worse SNR but you get low voltage cutoff protection.

It really depends how hard you wheel and how much you need comms/what your distance is. I run off my sPOD rather than off the battery directly because I have a lot of faith in sPOD's electrical protection and LVCO and I don't have any interference issues. YMMV.

 

Same here. A close friend ran his directly from the battery, no issues. Best part about it is you can leave it on at night, in case you are waiting for someone to join you. You also don't have to power it on each and everytime you turn your truck off. When we adventure we stop all the time to explore. Remembering to power up your radio each time can get annoying.

Mine is direct wired due to cleanliness of signal. Both of my truck batteries are topped off by solar, so draining the battery is of zero concern to me.

 

Nice. I just came across some brand new hand held units Midland GTX 1000 vp4 in the used REI store. Not the same range obviously but they will get some use around camp so i don't have to leave the truck on. I can see I'm going to have to finally make the secondary fuse block before all the relays start getting out of control. Or just get something like a switch pro or Spod. Appreciate all the input

 

I use one of these and hand’em to folks I do recoveries on if they don’t have their own. Great for coordination with strangers.

 

What fuse tap did you guys use 10 amp or 15 amp?

 

If you want to use the radio when broken down, directly to the battery is the most dependable way to hook it up.

 

I'm wired directly to the Aux box. GMRS with no issues so far. There are a couple ideas in the video you can use for placement. If you do decide on a radio with a remote box like the

$160 MXT275 MicroMobile GMRS 2-Way Radio

MXT275. You could pick up an extension and an RJ45 POE coupler in order to mount the mic connection anywhere in the cab.

https://youtu.be/8K2gd-WbyzE

 

Just remember with most modern cars, the ground should not go directly to the battery.

 

Why is that?

 

I pulled the center console and spliced in to the power/negative wire of the accessory power adapter inside of the middle console. I don't use that accessory power adapter anyway.

 

I'm curious to hear this logic as well because it doesn't make any sense. No difference in going directly to the battery or to the body ground that's 5" away. It's all the same ground.

 

I can tell you why I do it. It's because its a waste to fish two wires through the firewall when one will do.

However, so long as the battery has a sufficient ground cable (it does), I don't see how it endangers the electronics to hook up a direct route. (with the caveat that the ground cable must maintain connection to the battery while hooking up the electronic.) Technically hooking to the negative terminal is still grounded so long as that cable is maintained. It's ugly as hell and is looked down upon, but everything should still be safe.

 

There’s less of a chance to have electrical interference noises in the radio going directly to battery.