2018 SR5 Ham operator questions

How and where are you mounting your 2m/440 antennas?

Thanks

 

NMO trunk lip mount, on the hood.

 

Ragofabrication has one that goes where their ditch light bracket goes. I have not purchased one yet.

 

Thank you for the website .

 

That bracket is a somewhat flat plate that bolts onto the ditch light bracket below the light and extends the antenna out to the side by a few inches. The plate costs about $15. The ditch light bracket is required. That costs $85. If you didn't have ditch lights then one of the ditch light brackets could be used without the $15 plate.
The HAM antenna radiates radio waves sideways in a 360 sphere. The best location would be on the cab roof, but that puts it up where it can get raked off by low hanging garages and trees. The next best place would be forward of the cab along the hood edge. Where ever you put it on the front hood, make sure you can open the hood without damaging it.

 

Pretty sure they have a stand alone ham antenna bracket now as I spoke to the owner last week. It was hard to find on their website though. It was $55 IIRC.

Here you go

 

Not that my way is the best (it is) but $55 for a mount only; versus $20 for the NMO trunk lip base, coax, and pl-259? The trunk lip style is lower profile, protects the wiring, a third of the cost, and mounts in essentially the same place. If you run a cheapo VHF quarter wave like what's shown you can be up and running for $35 for everything.

If you take off the antenna for whatever reason you are left with a trim little nub, not a bracket poking up.

 

No argument from me but Im concerned about scratches from your style of mount where the Rago one doesnt touch the hood at all.

 

I suppose that's a consideration, although I personally don't care. I'm all scratched from brush and such; scratches on the corner of the hood are the least significant for me!

 

Does the antenna hit the windshield when you open the hood?

 

No. Even with a base loaded 5/8 wave the antenna clears the windshield just to the outside of the A pillar. The only "interference" is when I lift up the windshield wipers to clean the glass, the end of the wiper just barely hits the antenna. EDIT, this is with the antenna on the passenger side. On the driver's side there is 0 interference. I had dual antennas for a while - CB on pass, HAM on drivers - after I removed the CB I pulled the passenger antenna off.

 

Thank you

 

I recently installed a new Comet Antenna on my Taco - Used a standard Angle Bracket for an NMO Mount - Attached it to the inside of the Fender (not to the hood) It's about half way (not close to the windshield). Seems to work quite well. Have not (yet) put a radio in our Runner (shown in the picture) but would likely do the same thing. The Taco has a Yeasu 7900 with the separation kit - Mounted the control head with Velco rather than bolts. Where did you mount the radio and what kind did you use? Thanks -Clay, K7CR

 

Unsure who you are asking this to? The OP, I guess? Sounds as if he does not have a radio installed yet. This is mine - Icom IC 2730A. Pretty much have to use a remote head in these trucks, it's just too tight for a full size radio, I think.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Is this just the hood mount? Is the antenna off the mount and stored or is that the antenna? I like the small profile. Maybe a little bit forward would transmit and receive better?

 

The second pic I posted is the base only, no antenna, with a rain cap over the threads.

The first pic I posted is the base + 1/4 wave unity antenna.

The mount can't be moved forward due to its design, which slips over the lip of the hood (trunk). It transmits fine there.

 

Resurrecting for posterity and needing ideas.. where are you stashing the main unit?

 

following as well

 

Some interesting ideas. I just got my license, and have no idea what im doing currently, but im toying with the idea of roof mounting on a roof rack. But first I need a dual battery set up because currently my winch is using my battery.

 

Here's my setup, the radio body is under the passenger seat, is I got and external speaker and mounted it near my left ear, it does make me have to lean out a bit to check my blind spot when changing lanes, but I quickly got used to it.
I'm very happy with my install and choices of locations, I did drill a hole in the panel over the radio and put a grommet in to run the wire for the head unit, it makes it much tidier and if I ever remove it I can just put a rubber plug there. I also drilled small holes to mount the mic and ext speaker, but it doesn't bother me and I was very thoughtful about location as I only wanted to drill once.

BTW you DON'T need a dual battery to power a ham radio, most recommend wiring direct to the battery to avoid ignition noise in the radio but it doesn't have to be a separate battery.

 

Under passenger seat held to carpet by 'hook' velcro. This is the radio in my Tacoma but it's the same in the 4Runner:

 

My winch takes up the main battery, so i need another battery to mount that and lights for the rack too. I plan to mount to the passenger leg area

 

You can connect multiple things to the same battery, if you don’t want to connect them to the same bolt on the terminals you can get replacement ends for the battery cables with additional connection points,or put in an additional fuse box.
Maybe I just don’t understand what you are referring to?
I have a winch and radio and a couple more power points connected to my battery with no problem, people do it all the time.

 

You have to bare with me, my electrical knowledge is lacking. So my thing is since my winch is directly connect to the terminal on the battery, so i assume to hook other things up it would be in my best interest to have a secondary battery so I don't draw too much current off the main battery. I could be wrong not to mention how could I hook up other things to the battery with the winch connected. I could be over complicating things, but again only basing on my limited knowledge.

 

You are overthinking it, and you don't need two batteries for the amount of stuff you're describing. I would actually encourage you to not leave the winch connected all the time to battery. Most people either use an isolator, or only connect the winch as needed. Since there's no kind of circuit protection on the winch cable and it's a massive cable, there's a real potential of having it short out with no protection at all which can result in a fire.

 

^

 

I will look into that, as I don't want to get out and connect my winch when I really need it. I was thinking of adding a new fuse panel for lights and other electrical down the the line.

 

I think of it like old style manual locking hubs. If you are going offroad, just lock them in (or in this case attach the winch power using the wing nut on the extended bolt). Then you have it available immediately when you want it. When you go back on road, unlock your hubs (or in this case unscrew the thumb nut and d/c the winch power).

 

@dcwn.45 --The open coil on your antenna is a branch catcher! I know from experience that vegetation will find a way to grab onto the coil and yank the whole antenna off the mount. That's why I prefer closed antenna phasing coils with tapered ends. You can use heat shrink tubing (large diameter tubing over the coil and extending up and down the rod about1" in each direction, followed by 1 or 2 layers of small diameter heat shrink to close and taper each end.

I also carry a simple VHF 1/4 wave whip (also works with UHF) in case the primary antenna is damaged, rattles loose, or gets swiped.

 

Thanks for the tip!