Ham Radio Installation

[Shutterbug57]

Just curious where y’all are mounting mobile ham radios in the ‘18 & later Expy. I am seriously considering a Yaesu FTM-400XD and am looking for suggestions.

 

[duneslider]

I currently am not planning to put a permanent radio in the expedition. For now I have just been taking an HT with me. Ford recommends the antennas be at the rear of the vehicle, presumably to not interfere with the electronics up front. I am considering a lip mount on the rear hatch, or a mount that attaches to the luggage rack. I think an nmo put in the center of roof near the back of the expedition would be the best option, not good for getting into garages though.

The FTM-400 is a nice radio. I have an FTM-100 which oddly had the finals go out and is currently being sent in to yaesu for warranty repair. The FTM-100 and FTM-400 are essentially the same radio. I have read some of the early FTM-400's had this issue and was due to heat but they changed the fan and added cooling holes. Not sure what happened to mine. I know several people with the FTM-400 and they really like it. I have the ftm-100 head unit attached to the dash of my jeep with some heavy duty velcro stuff and it works great. Easy to pull off and hide away. I have an older FT-90 that has a really small head unit that I have considered putting in the expedition.

 

[Shutterbug57]

I currently am not planning to put a permanent radio in the expedition. For now I have just been taking an HT with me. Ford recommends the antennas be at the rear of the vehicle, presumably to not interfere with the electronics up front. I am considering a lip mount on the rear hatch, or a mount that attaches to the luggage rack. I think an nmo put in the center of roof near the back of the expedition would be the best option, not good for getting into garages though.

The FTM-400 is a nice radio. I have an FTM-100 which oddly had the finals go out and is currently being sent in to yaesu for warranty repair. The FTM-100 and FTM-400 are essentially the same radio. I have read some of the early FTM-400's had this issue and was due to heat but they changed the fan and added cooling holes. Not sure what happened to mine. I know several people with the FTM-400 and they really like it. I have the ftm-100 head unit attached to the dash of my jeep with some heavy duty velcro stuff and it works great. Easy to pull off and hide away. I have an older FT-90 that has a really small head unit that I have considered putting in the expedition.

Have you found any rack mounts that will fit an antenna to the cross bars?

 

[duneslider]

No, I was just going to make a small angle plate with a couple holes to match the mounting holes on roof rack side rails. I have my bars mounted more forward so the last holes on either side are not used.

 

[Shutterbug57]

No, I was just going to make a small angle plate with a couple holes to match the mounting holes on roof rack side rails. I have my bars mounted more forward so the last holes on either side are not used.

Yeah, I am planning the same. The only downside is that hides a weird shaped wave as you are not in the middle of the ground plane. Are you going with a mag mount or a folding permanent mount antenna?

 

[duneslider]

I generally use a 5/8 wave antenna on mobile installs. They don't really require a ground plane for good performance like you would need/want with a 1/4 wave. Plus, with uhf/vhf you aren't really talking DX here. You just need to get 15-20 miles, or up to the repeaters. There is always compromise with any antenna decision. My experience has been that a 5/8 wave gets me what I need pretty much no matter where I mount it. A 1/4 wave would probably do better in really steep country where you needed to get a signal sent up at a lot more than 45degree angles. I just don't need that sort of angle where I live.

I don't intend to have anything permanently mounted at the moment and don't have much love for mag mounts. I will take off anything that I put on, plus it won't fit in the garage if I leave it on. I have a 5/8 mounted on the lip of the hood on my jeep and haven't had any trouble getting out to anything I wanted to hit.

I can hit most repeaters I can hear with a handheld. We have pretty decent repeater coverage in Utah.

 

[Shutterbug57]

I generally use a 5/8 wave antenna on mobile installs. They don't really require a ground plane for good performance like you would need/want with a 1/4 wave. Plus, with uhf/vhf you aren't really talking DX here. You just need to get 15-20 miles, or up to the repeaters. There is always compromise with any antenna decision. My experience has been that a 5/8 wave gets me what I need pretty much no matter where I mount it. A 1/4 wave would probably do better in really steep country where you needed to get a signal sent up at a lot more than 45degree angles. I just don't need that sort of angle where I live.

I don't intend to have anything permanently mounted at the moment and don't have much love for mag mounts. I will take off anything that I put on, plus it won't fit in the garage if I leave it on. I have a 5/8 mounted on the lip of the hood on my jeep and haven't had any trouble getting out to anything I wanted to hit.

I can hit most repeaters I can hear with a handheld. We have pretty decent repeater coverage in Utah.

Good to hear. I have a mag mount 5/8 on a large pizza pan on top of a bookshelf in my second floor home office and it works great. I would expect it to do at least as well on top of the Expy as that is outside.

I have garage entry height issues too. I have thought of just putting the pizza tray & antenna in the back of the Expy and see what that does. It won’t be as good as on the roof, but dealing with the antenna every tine I go in/out of the garage will get old fast.

 

[duneslider]

Keep the watts turned down. I don't know that I would want to push 50watts with the antenna inside the car...

If you are just listening it should be okay. The metal roof will not help it but the big windows are letting plenty of RF in.

 

[Fozzy]

How are you thinking of running the coax back into the cab? I am thinking of putting a chase radio in mine and use the folding antenna mount that fits my Rhino Rack. Plus run wires for lights.


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[duneslider]

How are you thinking of running the coax back into the cab? I am thinking of putting a chase radio in mine and use the folding antenna mount that fits my Rhino Rack. Plus run wires for lights.


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Mine isn't a permanent install so I will just run it through the back hatch, use a smaller coax. My current antenna on my jeep has a couple feet of RG-188 that goes through doors and other small holes really easily, then it bumps up to a bigger coax. I will only have a radio in the expedition on occasion.

I noticed you are in Riverton. Are you a ham? If so, you should hit up our club meeting or jump on our weekly nets.

 

[Fozzy]

I am not. I am probably one of the guys the Ham guys hate. We run the PCI and Rugged race radios. Stick to the off road channels. I have been thinking about buying my own frequency for our group since the channels are getting pretty crowded now the car to car has gotten so popular with side by sides and Jeeps. 50 watt in the RV and SxS I can get from the top of a dune back to camp at little Sahara. Just dumped my truck for a SUV to try it out. Be nice to have one in it for day trips to the dunes.


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[duneslider]

Not sure why the hams would hate you. We like all sorts of radios. It looks like PCI and Rugged are making a killing on those things though! Almost makes me feel bad. The frequencies used by those are very close to the frequencies on the 2m ham band and the same chinese companies make ham radios that are basically the same but the ham versions cost 1/3 or less. For example, the Rugged RH-5R is basically the same radio as the UV-5R. Rugged sales it for $85. The UV-5R is under $25 usually. The GMRS bands are usually pretty empty I find and you can get 50w radios there too and they cost a lot less than PCI/rugged radios too.

If I remember right, there is pretty good ham radio repeater coverage at the dunes and I could get around pretty good with just 5watts. I haven't been to the dunes in a couple years though so I may be wrong.

 

[Fozzy]

On a lot of forums the HAM guys complain because we all should be licensed. Yes you are right all the radios are Chinese unless you go Kenwood or Motorola. Amazon has them all if you know what you are looking for. I have 6 UV5Rs I have programmed with CHIRP. It would be nice to learn how to use the repeaters.


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[TobyU]

Most repeaters just work on an offset input frequency that you transmit on to hit the repeater.
I started on CB in the late 70's as a kid and got into "shooting skip" on lower side band 38 mainly.
Then I found out about handhelds being able to cover distances with repeaters (didn't even know about IRLP) and wanted a HAM so I got an ICOM 2m/6m/440/1.2ghz handheld on sale for 275 I think.
This was around 95-96 and I didn't have a HAM license then.
The HAMS are a bunch of really nice guys that don't argue, yell, cuss and play music or make sounds over their frequencies.
Too many CB'ers do so there has always been some issues towards them.
I learned how it worked (I already knew calling CQ and QTH and QRT etc from shooting skip all over the country on 11 meters) so I made up a call sign since you kind of have to have one to get anyone to talk to you.
Then the darn internet got popular and anyone could look up call signs so they knew you weren't the person you made up--or you were in wrong location for that person etc, so I got my license.
2m is so dead now compared to what it used to be. You can use echolink app and talk on 2m over your smart phone too.
I think the coolest is IRLP.
You enter tones on your handheld to link you to I guess from a local repeater to another persons local repeater and you are talking to them on their repeater as if you were within 25--50 miles of them but you can be 2000 away.
I talked to a guy in Long Island NY 3 different days from SW OH.
Really neat!

For local get an export radio. I got s Magnum S9 years ago and love it.
The 10m guys sit around and shoot the shit much like CB but not as prim and proper as HAM guys.
They don't use call signs most of the time and just use names or handles - mostly names- "first personals"

They used to have Monday or weekly "check in" and clubs they maintained.

The export radios have a lot more power than 4w CBs usually 25-50 and they can flatfoot it a good distance esp at night like 30-40 miles.

 

[duneslider]

On a lot of forums the HAM guys complain because we all should be licensed. Yes you are right all the radios are Chinese unless you go Kenwood or Motorola. Amazon has them all if you know what you are looking for. I have 6 UV5Rs I have programmed with CHIRP. It would be nice to learn how to use the repeaters.


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You will have to get your license to use the repeaters. It is super obvious if someone is on there and not licensed and it is super easy to track people down who are using it illegally. Like mentioned, the ham bands are fairly under utilized at the moment so it is a great mode of communication and you don't get any of the garbage stuff going on like on all the unregulated bands. Licensing is super easy, I know 6-8 year olds that have passed the test.

Baofeng got hammered by the FCC so I think newer versions of their ham band radios will not work on the frequencies you want to use. The UV5r is technically an illegal radio because it works on frequencies outside its certifications and intended use.

Now that we have fully derailed this thread...

 

[TobyU]

I love my Baofengs!! I didn't know they changed things. This sucks. It will raise prices on the old ones! Hopefully there will be a simple mod or hack like on many other brands to restore what the factory legally has to block.

 

[duneslider]

I love my Baofengs!! I didn't know they changed things. This sucks. It will raise prices on the old ones! Hopefully there will be a simple mod or hack like on many other brands to restore what the factory legally has to block.

I don't know that I would use the word Love with Baofeng but...I do have a couple and for the money they serve their purpose but they are no where near the quality of my nicer equipment. I was very resistant to getting any but they do fill the cheap disposable radio niche. They are difficult to program in the field, easy with chirp but otherwise not intuitive.

From what I understand they will be blocking the out of bounds frequencies via software. Because they are Chinese I suspect it will be very difficult to figure out how to open them back up, they seem to have the most convoluted menu system and programming I have seen. I am sure someone will figure it out though.

My chinese TYT DMR radio is super fun though! That has been one of my most fun radios yet. Not totally sure why but DMR has been fun to mess around with.