Hey all. New here. Just wanted to post a pic of my 95 aero with 241,000+. It's used daily to commute back and forth to work but the main reason I bought it is to use it for Ham radio stuff. Roving is what it is called. I like to contest where we travel around to different grids making contacts over the radio. I haven't had it out for a contest yet but soon will. It has a fair amount of room for lot's of gear and antennas.

Later on,
Jim.

 

never heard of the ham radio contest, sounds like a cool rig though

 

Hi KC8JPZ

Welcome to our FTE forum

Ham radio eh? Can you build me an antenna for my mobile TV?

 

Hi guys, ham contesting is where you try to make as many contacts with different stations as you can. I thought it was fun as a permanent station from home. But now being able to move around is ten times the fun. I move through what are called maidenhead grid squares. They are 2 x 1 degree squares (actually rectangles).After I change grids I cn then re-contact the same stations again. Proabably boring you guys.

Copper, yes I can build you antenna for TV. Not as hard as you may think. We can even transmit TV signals.Not to be confused with Public Access. Completely different animal.


http://www.arrl.org/contests/
http://www.atco.tv/homepage/index.htm

 

hi jim,

great roving and family crusin rig, lots of seats and room to stuff kids and gear
did your Cargo come with the extra pass. seats?

what engine? AWD?
where did you find the heavy duty roof racks? brand?

giant Aero room makes great vertical ground plane

cliff
73

 

Hi Cliff, fellow ham I presume.

The Aero did not come with any additional seating in the back. I dont think it has the provisions for the rear seats. It has a hard plastic/rubberish flooring that really needs to be pulled up and swept.It has the 3.0 V6 and no AWD. The rack is a modified ladder rack manufactured by Weather Guard I think. It has almost 243 thousand miles now. Runs great. I think I am going to buy another motor from the junkyard and start rebuilding it for when the old one decides it has had enough. My only complaint is horrible ignition noise.I've been grounding and sheilding for about the last 2 weeks trying to get rid of it with no improvement.New resistor wires, new cap and rotor. New distributor too. sheilded and grounded the wires..etc...

Talk to you all later
Jim
73

 

Jim,

If you're still getting noise after shielding the heck out of the ignition, maybe the noise is coming in from the power source? The most effective noise suppressors I've used have always included an inductor in series with either one or both power leads (power and ground). The neatest one was made by winding two wires around a ferrite toroid core, one for the power and one for the ground. I forgot the directions of the windings you need, but you can make it so that common mode noises cancel each other out.

Something to try
kg6eih

 

the main problem is the fiberglass hood and dog house cover. both are supposed to be factory RF shielded but it's ineffective
I used copper screening with quick set epoxy adhesive, aluminum screen should work also....copper braid jumper to chassis bare metal

the EDIS system in 96 and 97 Aeros is even worse. i still can not use BC AM in my Aero because of noise from one plug wire. Use comm. FM or mp3 HD player connected to the factory cassette player

Magnecor wires is the way to go if EMI RF suppression is critical but they start at $100, my 10mm set is $200. I slid RG8 copper braid over each wire and grounded to engine and chassis at coil pack end
Motorcraft/Autolite are second on the list...all others waste of time to put on

Ford had EMI RFI problems with the distributor pickup leads and ECU/PCM wiring harness so they had to shield many of the wires. You'll still find many of the 12v pwr wiring hot with ignition EMI RFI
did the same as xlt, use 1.5" ferrite cores, type 43 for VHF/UHF and 77 or HF. wind both the + and chassis radio leads together thru the core as many times as will fit. keep the chassis lead short, ground as near the radio as posssible

no alternator noise with mine. i do know when i pull up along a running EDIS Aero, Ranger or Explorer, breaks the SSB squelch on my VHF/UHF rig and the HF rig

weak signal work, forget about running the engine
put in a large 2nd batt with isolator and 135a or 200a alternator

use a 2 meter portable with no antenna on in the AM aircraft band RX mode as an RFI sniffer to locate the RFI leaks and hotspots thru the firewall and wiring...start with max. squelch setting

73

 

Thanks for the input guys. It's definetly being received through the antenna. If I unscrew it the noise is gone.No alternator whine or anything. When I go out on the next rove, I hope to have my 12 volt generator done and extra battery. I hope it works ok. I would like to be completely independent from Aero's charging system.

 

sounds like the best way to go. My 77 f100 is having some fm Interference, I always thought it was just a bad antenna. I might try some of 96_4wdr's ideas and see what happens. As powerful as the antenna is in your rig I doubt you'll be able to completely isolate it car's interference though.