Clean VHF/CB radio installs

Do they make one that out performs a can and a string?

 

Thank you. I'm wondering if I could do a NGP antenna on the same ditch light bracket I have my CB antenna mounted to. Use a small bracket to space them apart a few inches. Something like this antenna on a bracket Do GMRS antennas need to be grounded the same way a CB does? I'm thinking not if a magnetic mount will work.

Thank you I will keep all that in mind.

I usually like to stick my head out the window and yell really loud.

 

Yes and no. They're a lot more forgiving. I have mine using a lip mount on my roof rack and it works mint.

PS - those brackets - you can get them elsewhere too, just "ditch light extension brackets". People add a second ditch light all the time, so there are slotted brackets that aren't purpose-driven antenna mounts. That was my original plan, and might still be to bring it lower, but roof rack lip mount is working great for now.

With any vehicle mount, it's like fighting for the best room on the Titanic. No matter what you do, it's still a sinking ship.

Get a megaphone.

 

Does anyone have a link to a good OEM style RJ45 port that will fit the switch blanks? Or is it better to do something like this in an inconspicuous part of the dash?

$12 CERRXIAN RJ45 Male to Female LAN Ethernet Network Cat 5e Panel Mount Cable (Black)(1m)

https://www.amazon.com/CERRXIAN-Fem...icromobile%c2%ae%20mxta31,aps,423&sr=8-4&th=1

 

No in-vehicle WiFi?

 

I don't have any blank switches, so I did the second method using one of these:

https://www.switchcraft.com/eh-seri...t-housing-black-m3-tapped-holes/ehrj45d5ebm3/

 

The topic of the discussion would incline people to believe its for the microphone not Internet.

 

This one is a perfect fit in the smaller switch locations and matches the factory blue dash lighting really well. It’s pricey because of shipping from Australia but was worth it to me. Shipping took about 2 weeks. https://www.ebay.com/itm/144066146979

 

Thank you. It fits the switches in the center console under the climate controls and not to the left of the steering column? And you've had no connection issues?

 

Thanks. I like that one better than the one I linked because it requires a round hole, which is easier to drill than cutting a square hole.

 

And it's female-female, so you can use whatever cable to reach it.

 

Yep! Thank you. Maybe I'll do this and put the connector somewhere close to the center console and not the center stack under the radio.

 

That’s correct, and no connection issues. I used the switch illumination harness from this thread https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...nd-play-switch-illumination-harnesses.697269/ to illuminate it. You’ll just need to crimp a connector onto the wires of the RJ45 plug that will mate with the connector of the illumination harness.

 

Just make sure there's enough space behind wherever it goes.

 

I have one of these from the first iteration of my install just sitting on my workbench; it has a CAT6 RJ45 female-to-female keystone installed if you want it. I'll throw it in a flat rate shipping box from the USPS with some packing peanuts and ship it to you.

 

I have realized I have never posted here. And, I think I have what qualifies as a "clean" VHF install.

To start with, I've been a HAM since early-2009. My first radio was a Kenwood TM-D710 mobile unit that I had installed on a 1994 Chevy Blazer. From there, I've fallen in and out of the hobby, only recently returning as an addition to the overland/off-roading hobby; when you're out of range of cell towers, you need reliable comms. As such, one of the first mods I did to my Taco was install the VHF/UHF dual-band radio. Prior to install, I did a lot of planning and research--I think some of my research may have come from this thread, actually. So, thanks to everyone here.

I knew that I wanted the D710GA because of it's APRS capabilities. While the AKM fire did it make it hard to obtain one, Gigaparts must have found some old stock in a warehouse somewhere because I able to snatch up a new unit at MSRP; lucky me! I also knew that the Larsen 2/70 NMO antenna performed beautifully with this radio, even with a terrible mount. With the two major components acquired, I then set about getting all of the minor accessories needed: antenna mount, antenna mount bracket, coax, PL-259 connectors, etc. Once all of that was on hand, I thought about power distribution. I knew that I was going to be running a lot of accessories in the cabin of the truck that would require power, so a distribution panel was in order. A simple Blue Sea distribution panel was sufficient for my needs because I was worried about electrical interference from things like a dash cam, seat heaters, etc. So I bought a Rigrunner 4008 from West Mountain Radio. The Rigrunner has a capacitor on each circuit that acts as an isolator for noise, so fears of interference were relieved. There are also a few other modifications to factor into the install as well that we'll cover later. But for now, a picture of the final install is in order.

Power Distribution
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One of the key components to any good radio install is good power--a noisy power source will make for a noisy radio. So, I pulled some 6 AWG zip cord from my battery through the drivers side of the firewall down the transmission tunnel and to the storage compartment under the rear seat. I ran the calculations for the estimated distance and factored in the maximum amperage that the 4008 could handle and came out at 6 AWG. From there, the cable was terminated at the Rigrunner side with Anderson Powerpole connectors and a

$22 Blue Sea Systems 5191 Fuse Block Terminal 30-300 AMP

Blue Sea MRBF Terminal Mount fuse block with the requisite

$17 Blue Sea Systems 5176 Battery Terminal Fuse, 40A

40 amp fuse; I also keep a few of these in the truck in case of an emergency.

Expedition Essentials 3TPAM
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Once we had power in the vehicle, we could start thinking about the head unit. Because the TMD710GA has a remote-mounted head and mic, this affords us a great amount of flexibility in where it can be placed. I knew that for daily driving, I would want the head unit easily visible and accessible. I also knew that I wanted things to be configurable for the type of situation I was in. As such, the 3TPAM was ordered. This module is known for being able to hold a full-size iPad without issues among other things. Coupled with the 1/4-20 threaded inserts everywhere, the 3TPAM affords an exceptional amount of stability and flexibility; the 5 amp USB-A ports are an added bonus and are wired to the Rigrunner so that they're always on. One downside to the 3TPAM, however, is the lack of a cable pass-through. Nothing a 1/2" Greenlee knockout punch and a grommet can't fix though!

In order to get the head unit of the D710 on the 3TPAM, I used a diamond ball base mounting bracket from RAM coupled with a short B-size arm and this nifty 3D-printed mounting plate from Ozy at Thingiverse. And, due to the location of the head unit and the transceiver, I ended up using the extension kit from Kenwood.

Audio
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Because the transceiver, and thus the speaker, is mounted in the rear cargo area under what used to be the rear seats, I also had to run an external speaker. I've had great success with a

$30 Cobra HG S500 Highgear CB Speaker, One Color, One Size

Cobra speaker in the past, so this was a cheap, obvious purchase. This guy is 3M VHB taped to the rear cupholders and the cable is ran through a hole I drilled with a grommet installed.

Microphone
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Before I get into this component, I fully admit I stole this idea from the guys at XOverland; so credit to Clay and Tanner is owed--thanks guys! Again, due to the location of the transceiver, I had to run the mic mount to front dash. Initially, this was done with a switch panel keystone mount from forty2skates on Shapeways. This was a pretty clean install because the mic cable was right where I wanted it. That is, until, I went to install heated seats before winter. Because I have the Tech Package, I had to remove the mount and instead flush mount a keystone holder into the passenger side of the center console. Make no mistake that installing that keystone holder took a good amount of effort because I wanted the hole to be as square and as tight as possible; all-in-all, I think it took about an hour of filing after drilling the initial 1/2" hole. Finally, for the mic holder, I stole the idea of using a

$27 Nite Ize Steelie Original Dash Kit - Magnetic Phone Mount for Car Dashboard - Car Phone Holder with Strong Steelie Magnet & 3M VHB Adhesive

Nite-ize Steelie from the guys at XOverland. Clay really nailed this because I no longer have to hunt for a damn clip while I'm driving down the Interstate at 70 mph. Instead, I pull the mic off of the mount, make my transmission, and just put the mic back in the general vicinity of the mount and it just snaps back on; I have yet to have this come loose while off-roading in the Colorado mountains.

Antenna
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Admittedly, I took the lazy route here--mainly because I wasn't ready to punch a hole in a truck that had less than 2000 miles on it. But, now that I've gotten past that, I have iteration two on the books--just need to order parts.

For this component of the install, I used a Victory 4x4 Hood Mount, the aforementioned Larsen NMO 2/70, and the Laird MABTO antenna mount. And honestly, it gets the job done. I get less than 1.5 VSWR on 2m and closer to 2.1 on 70cm. I almost never use the 70cm band, so the high-ish VSWR in that band doesn't concern me. However, I open my hood every night to put the truck on a maintainer. After a while, the connection at the mount comes loose due to the cable flexing. But, this has only occurred twice in the year that I've ran this setup.

I also run a Diamond NR-72BNMO for in-town operations or when I want to keep a low-profile.

Larsen 2/70


Diamond NR-72


And here is some VNA analysis of the antennas performance in this location.

The Larsen 2/70




And the Diamond NR-72

APRSDroid Capturing Packets from the Transceiver
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While not directly relevant to the install, this is a neat thing that I wanted to briefly cover. I love packet radio. It's an exceptionally useful way to communicate information via RF and it comes in handy for reporting position information, getting weather info, sending messages via SMSGate, and so much more. One of the things I can do with the D710 is pull the packet information directly from the radio and ingest them via APRSDroid. To do this, I use an RTSystems USB-K5G cable that is plugged into a cheap Android tablet. Once APRSDroid and the transceiver is configured properly, I can see position information in real time on Google Maps and read packets visually without needing to drill down through the D710 menus. You can see this function occurring in the first pic of this thread.

Conclusion
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And I think that's it. It's a long post, but my hope is that by documenting this it'll inspire someone else to do the same. Sure, it's a lot of money and a lot of time--about 30 hours of work if I recall correctly--but I have, at least in my mind, a clean install that is super reliable. Next up, we're punching holes in the roof and running some Breedlove roof mounts. But, that may not come until the beginning of next year. Thanks for reading!

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So you ran your Ground directly to the battery vice the common ground point on the body?

 

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Good job.

I have a 2023 AC 6MT 4x4 inbound as a home for my TM-D710G or FT-8900R, Byonics MTT4BT-40 digipeater, and probably something for HF+6m, though I am aware of the noise from the fuel pump on HF.

To that end, and with the thought of adding a light bar or two, I would like some under-hood power management, especially since much of it will be switched with the ACC. A fused fuse block connected to the battery would allow moving contacts over as needed with just a Phillips on hand. For the ACC-switched side I'd be curious as to whether the solid-state Switch-Pros 9100 or RCR-Force 12 introduces noise.

Since I'm going to have a light bar up top and am going to have a roof rack anyway. I'd like to mount at least 2 of the antennas in NMOs at the rear of the roof rack, maybe affixed to heavy cookie sheets or, temporarily, to two of these things:

I have spools of grounding strap to get the mount point grounded.

The MTT4BT-40 requires not only power in and antenna out but also uses a GPS receiver. Seems as if the entire mess could live outside the cab, provided I can come up with a good small weatherproof box for the unit. Obviously the APRS is going to need to be independently switched, so I would bring in separate power from the Switch-Pros/fuse block/whatever for that. Putting a Power Pole block inside for each of the two power pairs is pretty much a given.

I'd like the TM-D710G faceplate up top in the center somewhere because my xyl, who is also a ham, will need to be able to operate.

I'll worry about HF later, but I want power and the antenna line in place.

 

I read through your post a couple of times in order to ensure I fully understood what you were doing. The short version is that I think you quite a project on your hands--but, I think you're headed in the right direction.

If you're wanting to work HF, 2m, and 70cm, I would give consideration to the Icom 7100 as all of those bands are contained in one transceiver. For what you save in buying one transceiver as opposed to two, you can purchase a mount for the 7100 head unit and allocate funds to other components such as that Switch-Pros 9100.

To that point, if I had a lot of switchable accessories--such as light bars--I would run the 9100. I'm willing to bet that due to the solid state components of the 9100, you'll experience next to no interference.

For the antenna mounts, I think mounting off of the roof rack is a viable option so long as you can achieve <1.5 VSWR; there are a few posts in this thread that I would consider if I wanted to run a roof rack.

For the weatherproof box, depending on your feelings about aesthetics, I would grab a weatherproof box from a home supply store with the necessary passthroughs for cables.

Finally, KC HiLites makes a "universal wire hider" that runs alongside the A-pillar trim on the window. This will allow you to run your cables on the exterior of the vehicle without needing to punch holes in things.

 

In some respects, yes. The RigRunner is directly connected to the battery and transceiver is directly corrected to the RigRunner. The connection between RigRunner and transceiver is about 8 to 10 inches. Also, the RigRunner has capacitors installed on each power output; these capacitors act as noise isolators--just like your battery. Also, by going directly to the battery the circuit starts and stops at the source of energy thus reducing the chances for electrical noise. That and the TM-D710GA manual explicitly states, "[r]oute the DC power cable supplied with the transceiver directly to the vehicle’s battery terminals using the shortest path from the transceiver." While I didn't go directly to the battery, I did put measures in place to eliminate voltage drop and the introduction of electrical noise.