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I like your idea I have been looking for a way to roof mount without having to pull the whole headliner down. I will look into that when I get home. I am glad to see that we have Hams out there. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Antenna --> Comet SSB5 on an RS730 mount. The mount is attached to the left edge of the hood as far to the rear as I could get it. I routed the feed line through the plastic cover that Ford puts over the hole where the clutch master cylinder would have been mounted.
I scraped/wire brushed the mounting hardware so that there was continuity trough all of the various pivots and found that the mount bit into the underside of the hood well enough to achieve a ground.
I went with this mounting method primarily so that I'd still be able to get into parking garages. But I have since found parking garages that I can't get into with nothing on the roof (6 feet of clearance... what were they thinking?!), so I may go to roof mounts in the future. Also if I want to have the amateur and fire band radios in the truck at the same time I'll probably have to go with roof mounts.
Radio --> Until it died I had a Yaesu FT-8100R mounted just ahead of the center seat. I now have a Yaesu FT-1500M in the same location until funds become available to replace the 8100. During fire season I put a Kenwood TK-705D there.
Radio mount --> I mounted the radio using a modified RAM ball mount.
I cut a piece of 1/8" steel bar stock 1-1/2" wide and about 3" long, drilled it to match the holes in the ball base, slid the bar between the cushion of the middle seat and the steel frame that runs along the front of the seat, and attached the ball to it with 8-32 machine screws.
The provided arm runs from the ball mount to the rectangular mounting base. To the mounting base I attached 1/8" X 1-1/2" aluminum bar stock long enough to bring the radio to the position that I wanted, and mounted the radio to the aluminum bar stock extension pieces. I put a self adhesive felt pad on the under side of the aluminum bar stock to protect the seat.
With this mounting of the radio is placed so that when my arm rests on the middle seat, the controls are at my finger tips.
Im in the process of mounting a gift 2M. A good friend gave me a Yaesu Ft1500M. Living on the North Shore of Kauai means tsunami potential, and isolation after. Ham net means comm with county civil defense etc.
Have mounted the unit on the dash about centerline below line of sight to road with sun/heat shield
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Plan to run pwr line in crack between windshield and dash to left, thru drilled hole in rubber door gasket, fwd thru existing small hole into eng bay just above door hinge, to left battery. Is there any value to twisting + and - wires in this run between unit and battery?
Hope to run antenna with mag mount running wire in crack between windshield and dash to left,up door post into head liner if poss or over door to back of cab then out thru drilled hole in plastic surrounding sliding rear window and up to cab top.
I had an amazing setup in my new 2007 Ford Ranger - spent a lot of time setting it up and refining it. I traded the Ranger in for a 2008 F250 Super Duty and since have traded that in for a 2015 F350 SD. For some reason, mostly room I guess, I pulled the equipment out of the Ranger, put it in my basement and have never touched it since. As Lee (fjlee) stated, the reason for the Super Duties was to carry a slide-in truck camper. Why I never hooked something up for camping, I'll never understand but maybe this thread will get me going again! Here's some pics of the Ranger and it's setup:
A High Sierra Sidekick HF screwdriver antenna on the side of my cap and a Diamond SG7900A dual band UHF/VHF Antenna on the roof.
A hand made console housing a Kenwood TM-D700A UHF/VHF dual band w/APRS, a Kenwood TS-480HX, a filtered power strip, speakers for each rig, a Garmin Streetpilot IIIC for APRS use and the tuning device for the High Sierra antenna. How do you spell C-O-M-P-A-C-T?
Everything was in easy reach without causing any driver "loss of attention" problems... just couldn't get it all stuffed into either Super Duty!
I'm KC2EBM but haven't fired up a radio in years. Thought about rigging something up when I bought the F350 but due to garage heights I just never found a good solution.
Ed here, KF5INW. In my 2008 F-250, I had my magmount antenna on the roof, right above the bed light. I took out the bed light, and used a plastic something (stick thing) and pushed the antenna cable through the headliner. I poked it first to see if there was a clear path, and there was. I had a overhead console with the big storage bay, and my Yaesu FT-7900 fit in it perfectly.
I now have a 2011, and I mounted the antenna on a heavy metal thing I found in my garage, screwed down to the bed rail behind the cab. The cable is run through the driver side hole behind the plug at the front of the bed, then through the vent hole of the cab. The radio is under the rear seat, with the head unit mounted on my dash. Let's see if I can get a couple of pics.
Ranger RCI 2970N2 for 10m and childrens band w/102 whip..
Yaesu FT 7900R for 2m and police/fire scanning..
I'm not real active anymore on the bands anymore, but it is nice having 2m as an option in case of emergency where cellular signal is weak or completely dead..
Ed here, KF5INW. In my 2008 F-250, I had my magmount antenna on the roof, right above the bed light. I took out the bed light, and used a plastic something (stick thing) and pushed the antenna cable through the headliner. I poked it first to see if there was a clear path, and there was. I had a overhead console with the big storage bay, and my Yaesu FT-7900 fit in it perfectly.
I now have a 2011, and I mounted the antenna on a heavy metal thing I found in my garage, screwed down to the bed rail behind the cab. The cable is run through the driver side hole behind the plug at the front of the bed, then through the vent hole of the cab. The radio is under the rear seat, with the head unit mounted on my dash. Let's see if I can get a couple of pics.
Nice setup Ed - I never thought of trying to stuff the radios somewhere hidden. Both my Kenwoods have Remote Heads!!! My problem is the Truck Camper - I'd have to front bumper mount the antennas because of the camper's overhang! I even had to cut 3" off of the truck's regular stereo antenna 'cuz it kept slapping the front of the camper, so a cowl mount probably wouldn't work either!
Jim D - N1IV
Last edited by jimd1050; 02-11-2015 at 02:57 PM.
Reason: Added a picture
12-14-2002, 05:16 AM
WH6EMD Aloha
to left battery. Is there any value to twisting + and - wires in this run between unit and battery?
