What type of CB.....

So I was missing a CB on my recent 20 day, 9200 mile trip - especially on the Dalton because everyone has a CB up there.

Said fuck it, and got a President Johnny III. $114 at Right Channel Radios. Nice little radio. It has a scan feature, weather channels, a scanning weather alert that doesn't interfere with the CB use, interchangeable back-lighting colors, channel up / down on both the radio and on the mic, roger beep (cool!), RF gain, PA, memory channel, ASC - Auto squelch (works great!), and some other neat features. I like it so far.

If I didn't really want to have the scan feature I would have just used my Uniden 510 or gotten a 520. They are almost the same size as the Johnny, maybe a hair smaller.

I decided I was going to stuff that thing into the useless console pocket under the USB and cig lighter (5th gen). Hardly anyone has gotten that placement to work with a full size radio because there are heater ducts behind it so there is no room to go deeper. I decided I didn't care. This was happening one way or the other.

I removed that pocket, cut a portion of the back (matching the width of the radio) off it, chopped out the heater duct immediately behind it which provides air through the console to the vents on the back side of the console, and then dremeled out a chunk of the duct behind that one, which provides air to I don't know what. I damn near punched too far and hit the heater core which is behind THAT second duct, but it's behind a metal firewall of sorts and I stopped short of actually hitting anything that holds antifreeze. I felt sick the whole time, like I was doing something really awful.

But... everything still works (except the air ducts exiting out the back of the console), nothing leaks, and I have almost a flush fitting full size radio in that pocket.

Radio is held in with shelf liner wedged above and below it. Super solid. Antenna is routed to the radio via a 90 degree connector to save as much space as possible and I ran a jumper cable to the antenna connector so I can swap antennas, check SWR, etc., without removing the radio.

The other radio partially visible in the pics is my Icom remote head. CB mic is on the left of the two mics.

 

Once I used HAM, I ditched my CB. CB had limited distance and too much chatter. HAM requires a license but is worth the one day course. I may pick up GMRS as my last trip would have been better with coms and the guys didn't have anything.

 

Nice clean install MeefZah.

 

Gracias