Hi everyone. I searched the forums for an efficient way to install a ham radio in the renegade. Finally found and completed it yesterday. (The antenna mounting bracket is currently painted, I'm waiting for it to dry). The antenna is a comet SBB2, and will be attached to the roof rails via a custom bracket I made using scrap steel I had. I'll post a pic later, when it's installed. First of all, I'm using a Yaesu FT8900, the quad-band radio but only for 2m, 70cm for now. (The antenna is short, my garage is 7ft in height at the door, the antenna will be at an angle). Since my radio has a detachable head, I'll take advantage of that. Since I decided to install the radio in the trunk near the spare tire, I need to feed it power, and I decided to feed it directly from the battery. The wire starts at the battery (obviously!) and enters the cabin through an existing grommet near the brake pedal (at the left of the pedal, easy to see, is probably the access hole for the clutch, but my Renegade is a trailhawk, so no manual option anyway). Then, I removed the door jamb at the driver door, and routed the wires there. (3 wires in total, +12v, speaker and the remote control head wire). Speaker is installed under the steering wheel. I don't know if it'll stay there or not depending on the final sound, but I like the idea of having it completely hidden. Radio body is bolted to the trunk floor. The metal screws holding it also serve as my ground connection to the body of the vehicle. Control head fits nicely under the climate controls, a little to the right to clear the "4wd wheel". The +12v is big (8ga), but it'll serve to connect my ARB fridge and a solar panel mounted on the roof, so I'll take any voltage loss I can avoid. Hope this helps someone, comments welcome for sure, and I'll post pics of the antenna when it's completed. Pics here for the install : http://imgur.com/a/ZzPE8
Thanks. I took my sweet time before doing this, since I wanted the cleanest install in both presentation (control placement, wire placement) and functionnality (8 awg wire going to the battery, smallest voltage loss as possible) My antenna bracket was not completely dry yesterday night, so I expect it to be ready tonight, so I should be able to post pics of the antenna bracket, wire routing through the rear driver-side stop light tonight. Radio is working wonders though, I tested it this morning with the antenna in the trunk. Speaker position sounds good enough for me.
How's the heat in your spare tire well? I probably won't bother with a mobile rig (it's my wife's vehicle anyway) but when I did the hitch install I had the speaker grilles off in the back and behind them seems to have a lot of room and there's a source for power in the fuse block back there.
I don't know about the heat yet (I'm in Canada and it's winter here. Temps have gone up since a few days, 25-30F approx but not much more) So I don't know yet. But my duty cycle is fairly low (I don't transmit much) and normally it's low power (5-10 watts) so I should be good. I thought mounting it behind the speakers. What stopped me was the fact it would be more difficult to plug the computer interface cable to program it when I wanted to change the memory contents. Other than that, maybe I should take a second look, in order to free space around the spare tire a bit. I like to carry many tools with me.
Is the programming cable connector Mini-DIN-6, basically a PS/2 connector? You might be able to get a bulkhead-mount cable like this one or this one and mount the connector through the plastic interior panel such that you don't even have to open the speaker grille to get at it, so long as you leave that bulkhead cable plugged in to the radio once it's mounted in place. Even if it's not Mini-DIN-6, as long as it's an off-the-shelf connector then it's likely someone makes a panel-mount or bulkhead-mount extension cable that would give you access to the management port on the device. You might even be able to find one long enough to run up to the passenger area if you wish to program the radio without having to get into the cargo area.
