Ham Radio Installed!

[chaosmarine92]

I just finished installing a ham radio for the 2m/70cm bands. Here is the finished product first.

Now starting from the back, I have a comet SS-460SB antenna. It is 18 inches tall which leaves me about 3 inches of clearance going through the garage door. The antenna is mounted on a mohawk designs 3/4" cybertruck bracket. The cable is a 16'9" comet 3D5M UHF cable that I pushed into the gap between the cantrail and the body, then came over the rail and with 2 pieces of duck tape kept it out of the way of the door. I just let the cable be squished into the weather seal on the door at the bottom which hasn't harmed it then ran under the floor mat up to the drivers seat.

Under the driver seat I put the radio transceiver (Yaesu FTM-150RASP) and a 13.8v 30A dc power supply (Jesverty sps-1330). The transceiver came with a bracket that I screwed into a wood board cut to fit under the seat and the power supply just has a screw at the front and back that are sticking up to keep it from sliding. The power cable for the power supply then goes back along the seat and plugs into the 120v outlet under the rear screen. From the radio I ran a 7ft ethernet cable to the front head unit tucking it under the floor mat and coming out at the mats highest point. I just used a bit of tape to keep the cable out of the way.

To mount the head unit I made a wooden rectagle out of 4 bits of wood screwed together, painted black, and with felt stapled to the surfaces that touch the truck. Measurements were just cutting sticks that were a little to long then holding them in place to mark where to cut it to size. I also added ~1" cube blocks on the back to keep the cradle from swinging. I just pushed the blocks into where I needed them then stapled them to the cradle.

The bottom stick of the cradle has 4 holes drilled in it. 2 small ones for the mic mount screws, a 1/2" hole to pass the ethernet cable through, and a 1/4" for the mounting screw. The mounting screw wasnt long enough to go all the way through the cradle so I drilled a 1/2" hole halfway through from the backside to let it stick out.

Total cost was about $600 with most of that being the radio itself. Let me know if you have question!

Here's the rest of the pictures.

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[EasternSP]

would that void your warranty by introducing that to the electrical system?

 

[RustyEdges]

Neat install @chaosmarine92, someone will be confused by the antenna

 

[chaosmarine92]

would that void your warranty by introducing that to the electrical system?

I don't see how. The only electrical connection is the normal 120v plug for the power supply.

 

[chaosmarine92]

Neat install @chaosmarine92, someone will be confused by the antenna

Totally not to make people think it's a RC truck...

 

[TexasRaider]

Hell yeah! Nice! I’m finishing up my own routing and placement.

 

[Bridgeboy69]

Total cost was about $600 with most of that being the radio itself. Let me know if you have question!

Very cool setup!

Out of pure curiosity, what do you use the HAM radio for? I mean, I know what one is, but in today's modern world with so many other forms of wireless communication, I geniunely don't know what people still use them for, and especially while driving in a vehicle...genuinely just curiosus...

Also, what kind of range do you get? How far can you communicate with other HAM radios?

 

[Jerrytes2023!]

Are you having any electrical noise to the SS-460B ?
73s WA0RCX

 

[chaosmarine92]

Very cool setup!

Out of pure curiosity, what do you use the HAM radio for? I mean, I know what one is, but in today's modern world with so many other forms of wireless communication, I geniunely don't know what people still use them for, and especially while driving in a vehicle...genuinely just curiosus...

Also, what kind of range do you get? How far can you communicate with other HAM radios?

Part of it is just the urge to tinker. It's something fun to do that let's you test how you did as soon as you finish. Another part is the social aspect. Ham radio is it's own community that introduces you to a lot of interesting people. Plus on the 2m/70cm bands you know that whoever you talk to is roughly local to you.

Range with this setup is mostly limited by hills/mountains and the curve of the earth. If I were in Kansas I could talk directly to anyone out to just past my horizon. However my area also has several linked repeaters operated by other hams so going through those my range extends out to about 100 miles in certain directions.

With high frequency radio you can talk globally depending on what the atmosphere is doing but it requires much bigger antennas. Several meters up to 80 meters long depending on what band you are trying to reach.

 

[chaosmarine92]

Are you having any electrical noise to the SS-460B ?
73s WA0RCX

Not that I've noticed so far. Before this I've been running that antenna and cable connected to an HT that I just sat in the cup holder and it never had any issues for the past couple months.

 

[ted46]

Not that I've noticed so far. Before this I've been running that antenna and cable connected to an HT that I just sat in the cup holder and it never had any issues for the past couple months.

Great installation. (NX6C at this end)

 

[ÆCIII]

I wished the transceiver manufacturers would collaborate more developing USB and/or wireless connection options for remote head/mic/audio functionality to be provided via an application seamlessly in the screen U/I just like the cellphone accessibility for audio and text are already integrated in the Tesla software.

They could even make the right scroll wheel function as a PTT button while the app interface is active, as well as a volume or frequency selector. With this type of integral interface the transceiver and mic wouldn't even need to be visible, and could be placed behind/under a seat, in a frunk or trunk, etc. reducing clutter for a clean integration. That would be useful for police vehicle configurations as well because their front seat areas are fraught with clutter from other devices and could benefit from cleaner integration.

Another benefit of this integration would be Tesla's automatic volume reduction of entertainment/auxilary audio, whenever critical warning beep/alarms are triggered so the driver's attention to the alerts are more assured.

It would likely require Tesla to provide sandbox functionality for third party apps because this is still a niche user case in the market. I don't think Tesla would spend resources on developing such apps themselves, even though they likely have much of the code and library modules that could be customized into such an app.

High end home stereo receivers and audio systems have offered phone app accessibility for some time now, so I don't think this idea or use-case is too 'far-fetched'.

-ÆCIII

 

[chaosmarine92]

I wished the transceiver manufacturers would collaborate more developing USB and/or wireless connection options for remote head/mic/audio functionality to be provided via an application seamlessly in the screen U/I just like the cellphone accessibility for audio and text are already integrated in the Tesla software.

They could even make the right scroll wheel function as a PTT button while the app interface is active, as well as a volume or frequency selector. With this type of integral interface the transceiver and mic wouldn't even need to be visible, and could be placed behind/under a seat, in a frunk or trunk, etc. reducing clutter for a clean integration. That would be useful for police vehicle configurations as well because their front seat areas are fraught with clutter from other devices and could benefit from cleaner integration.

Another benefit of this integration would be Tesla's automatic volume reduction of entertainment/auxilary audio, whenever critical warning beep/alarms are triggered so the driver's attention to the alerts are more assured.

It would likely require Tesla to provide sandbox functionality for third party apps because this is still a niche user case in the market. I don't think Tesla would spend resources on developing such apps themselves, even though they likely have much of the code and library modules that could be customized into such an app.

High end home stereo receivers and audio systems have offered phone app accessibility for some time now, so I don't think this idea or use-case is too 'far-fetched'.

-ÆCIII

Now that would be great to see. I think the biggest roadblock would be that Tesla wouldn't want to make a radio app, they would have to decide to open up the ecosystem to third parties. And that introduces a whole family of problems they likely just didn't want to deal with.

 

[BrockN]

I'll be interested to hear if you start noticing weaker signals are noisier and weaker than they should be.

My FT-8800 has the body under the driver's seat and the head is under the screen. In my case, I used an under screen shelf that I reinforced with a bit of metal between the rubber bottom liner and the plastic shelf bottom itself. I found a very small camera ball head and connected it to the bottom of the shelf, then the ball to the remote head mount. I can aim the radio screen as I please and it's quite inconspicuous...

However, I went from using a 120 V supply to a LiFePO4 battery, because I found the inverter that powers the 120 V socket was generating noise that just added hash to weaker signals. Definitely not the power supply either, as I can turn the noise on and off when powered from the battery, simply by switching the inverter on and off from the touchscreen.

I'm guessing 'common mode' might be part of the problem and have a bunch of snap on ferrites I'll add to the coax run when I'm motivated. That might solve it, we'll see.

So if you notice you aren't hearing the signals you think you should, consider the possibility you're experiencing what I did. It doesn't sound like anything obvious, it's just enough to mess with the receiver.

73, VA7AV

 

[tmeyer3]

I wished the transceiver manufacturers would collaborate more developing USB and/or wireless connection options for remote head/mic/audio functionality to be provided via an application seamlessly in the screen U/I just like the cellphone accessibility for audio and text are already integrated in the Tesla software.

They could even make the right scroll wheel function as a PTT button while the app interface is active, as well as a volume or frequency selector. With this type of integral interface the transceiver and mic wouldn't even need to be visible, and could be placed behind/under a seat, in a frunk or trunk, etc. reducing clutter for a clean integration. That would be useful for police vehicle configurations as well because their front seat areas are fraught with clutter from other devices and could benefit from cleaner integration.

Another benefit of this integration would be Tesla's automatic volume reduction of entertainment/auxilary audio, whenever critical warning beep/alarms are triggered so the driver's attention to the alerts are more assured.

It would likely require Tesla to provide sandbox functionality for third party apps because this is still a niche user case in the market. I don't think Tesla would spend resources on developing such apps themselves, even though they likely have much of the code and library modules that could be customized into such an app.

High end home stereo receivers and audio systems have offered phone app accessibility for some time now, so I don't think this idea or use-case is too 'far-fetched'.

-ÆCIII

I have sort of accomplished this using a headless bt transceiver. I get some of the benefits you've mentioned like reduced volume during calls and such. But I do have to change channel or frequency using the optional wireless ht. I hide the whole unit under the seat which is really nice.

Mine is a VGC but I don't recommend it, works great but is a pain to program. My buddies have really liked the new headless bt mobile transceiver from baofeng (btech in US now?), though. Cheap and works great.

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