[Dalite]

Anyone install a Ham Radio in their Murano?

I am thinking about either putting a Radio Shack HTX-252 (Mini 2M rig) in the compartment at the fron of the console, or a Yaesu FT-100, using the remote head kit and mounting the display overhead on the flat part that covers the sunroof motor.

I would like to use a hatch mount for an antenna, but will probably have to pass on that due to the composite makup of the hatch (no ground plane).

I hav also considered a through the glass antenna for VHF.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[GripperDon]

How many watts? Sorry to bring up a old horse to run again, But Check out the Air bags One of out design parameters is both electrostatic discharge from humans. Industry uses 25,000 vdc at only 500UF (home I remember the capacitor correctly( any way bout 202,00 ergs. What you get when you get zapped at the door handle.

The RF is only based upon heating factors. Not genetic damage or tumor potential (all you heavy cell phone uses, should read up)1watt per square meter.

Some squibs or initiator or EED's take your pick on terminology have ferrite built in.

The bridge is 1watt at 1 ohm for 5minute no fire.

All that said, JAAK might have a rig in his, I haven been active in decades so a little out of touch.

Just a word to the wise.

 

[Dalite]

The Yaesu would be 100 watts on HF and 6m with 50 watts on 2m and 30 watts on 70cm

The Radio Shack is only 25 watts on 2m.

I have run the Yaesu in my 2003 PT Cruiser, which has dual front airbags with no problem.

However, I ran 300 watts in a 94 Grand Cherokee and it would cause the ignition to miss on voice peaks on SSB.

In conversations with some of the radio shops around the local truckstops, I get a benchmark of 350 to 400 watts being the point at which electronic systems start getting affected (on 27 mhz, probably similar for general HF use)

I am primily interested in having a rig I can use during hurricane season evacuations. It is nice to have a rig in the car for emergency use; especially when there is infrastructure damage and cell towers are either out or overloaded.

It is looking more and more that Ham Radio is on the way out.


With more and more RF sensitive systems being used in the auto industry, even if you could overcome the possibility of RF transmissions causing system malfunction, you probably couldn't shield the receiver enough to filter out all the interference that the car is causing

 

[rbsmo04]

I sat in my MO the other day with the remote head to my dualband Kenwood....but I just couldn't find any place for it that I really liked. Mic location problems, etc...

I think if she ever does get installed in the MO, it's gonna be in the compartment between the seats.

Antenna? That's a whole 'nuther issue. ;-)

 

[GripperDon]

I am only cautious because I have seen the air bag for many years. I actually started the Air Bag program in 1968 for Allied Corp and was the Chief Engineer and design and built many system, some of which are still in production even today.

Enough said. Every situation is different. I am not prediction as problem but simply wanting to create an awareness of the potential. I have included a couple of page form the Service Manual that indicate how far ranging and dispersed the SRS is around the MO. I would recommend that you review the entire section in the Service manual of your year.

The 300 watt that you mention as the point the it started to effect thing on a previous does serve to make your aware that the EMI is there and can effect things.

I just had to replace an inverter in the MO because of streaks and sparkles on the NAV screen when it ran.

I would only make one recommendation please become informed, do a Google search for EMI and RF hazards to pryotechnic restraint systems in vehicles.

You can do it if, IF these effect are consider during installation. I also design pyrotechnic systems for Air crew ejection seats and we have some very prowerful system on Military aircraft riding along with lot's of EED's. But they are OK because we run lots of test and can design with knowledge. Your are probably not i the position to run the tests BUT YOU CAN become knowledgeable. Good Luck and as they say on TV "BE Safe out there" Don

Sorry I was unsuccessful at transferring the clipboard to the message.

 

[jaak]

Hmmm... Interesting thoughts...

Being a ham myself (and also an Inspector with the Canadian Dept. of Communications - Think FCC Engineer) I'm with Gripper about being sensitive to what you put where.

While most automotive electronics does have some sort of RF filtering ( You wouldn't want your airbags to deploy or your ABS to kick in as you drive by that 250 Kw AM transmitter, would you?) I would try to ensure all RF connections are good quality connectors and tight, and keep the antenna above the roof towards the back, if possible and don't run the coax next to the wiring harness. I'd also run a separate power connection directly to the battery, fused at the battery, to further isolate potential RF paths from getting into the Murano's electronics. Might even be worth it to put an RF bypass cap on the power, although I suspect most radios don't need it.

My rig's been sitting on the shelf, but I've considered putting it in. It's on the list with the other 100 things I'd like to do one day.

I have only seen a vehicle act "funny" once from RF, and that was my '95 Taurus, when I had a high band VHF antenna near the front of the roof. Moved it towards the back and all was happy again.

Ran my TS-850S in the Taurus many times, with no problems at over 100 watts PA output.

 

[GripperDon]

Good JAAK! The only thing I thought of later is staying away from the SRS control system. May a ferrite clippede on it's power source. If you look for "Yellow" connectors you are seeing things related to the firing circuit.

 

[jaak]

Yeah, both good tips.

Overall, I'm not too worried, because we do have cell phones in cars as well and they're just radios made to look like phones.

But enough RF power in the wrong place can still cause grief.

To me, the ideal radio would have a control cable to the front, but the actual RF section would be in a box that you could mount in the rear in one of the storage containers, with the RF coax going up to the roof to the antenna. That just keeps the whole RF section away from most of the electronics at the front.

 

[GripperDon]

Great Idea, Speaking of cell phones, My younget son is a Doc and I have had the opportunity to see it true that cell phone can intefere with hear monitors etc.

That puny 300milliwatts as compared to 300 watts is of course what worried me. My Auto rig back in the old days was a more modest 50watter.

 

[EasternPA]

I ran my Yaesu FT-1500M on the cross-country trip, but while cute and small, it still wasn't small enough to stick anywhere. I generally kept it inside the center console compartment and would rest it in the cup holders while actually in use. Not very convenient at all, but I only needed it for a few weeks.

One of the reasons I've said I need more than just 4 USB interfaces on a carputer (think XBox) is that I could certainly use a (normal) serial port to interface with the FT-1500M and put a nice PC GUI frontend on the nav screen while keeping the unit installed somewhere in the rear. In that case, I would only need to find a place to hang the mic.

I just renewed my license for the first time, btw. I can't believe its been 10 years already! Its actually been 11 or 12... the FCC typo'd my first license and I never received a paper copy until I filed a change-of-address when I moved to PA (and a new region).

Nice to see so many hams in here!

 

[GripperDon]

I sure wish I could get some kind of no code Ham again. Anybody any ideas.

 

[EasternPA]

Just do it!! There's a new licensing structure, and I believe you can get on all bands at 5 (or maybe 13) wpm. I'm personally more interested in VHF+ and alternative modes (PSK31, ATV, FHSS, APRS) but that's what makes our hobby so great.

 

[jaak]

Yeah, just do it! I haven't checked lately, but if I recall correctly you can get a no code license that allows you VHF and above. Good for local communications.

Hmmm... The remote idea's not bad. In the past, I've stuck my rig on a board that leaned against the passenger seat and was angled to the driver. Not the most elegant, but it's not a small radio.

I could put it in the back and use some remote software I wrote 10 years ago. Hmmm... Another input for the Pac Audio adapter.

Looks like this:

 

[EasternPA]

Hmmm... The remote idea's not bad. In the past, I've stuck my rig on a board that leaned against the passenger seat and was angled to the driver. Not the most elegant, but it's not a small radio.

I could put it in the back and use some remote software I wrote 10 years ago. Hmmm... Another input for the Pac Audio adapter.

Good lookin' front-end. Something like that for a rig that does SSTV or ATV, and I could switch between the radio control frontend coming from the PC and the actual received stills or video right on the nav screen. Mobile video conferencing platform Who knows, maybe it won't be long before rigs that do SSTV natively include radio status on that composite out and I won't even have to worry about the PC-based rig control software! Kenwood has had a somewhat proprietary 9600 baud version of SSTV for years with composite out. Now I want to know if they display the radio status on that composite out!

 

[GripperDon]

I would love to learn more about the NO-code I check it out. I am so short of time, with Grippee, 3 cats, 3 kids and a dozen hobbies that learning code again really leaves me overwhelmed. Us old codgers are kind of slow in the long content memory area. This is the POOKI cat my favorite, has a tough life as you can see. Thanks for the No code info.

 

[jaak]

That's my problem Don, not enough time!

I have my nice Kenwood TS-850S/AT that I purchased when they first released them. My daughter happened in 1995 and the software work stopped, along with many other things. The radio's sitting on a shelf in my office looking at me. Great radio, but it's not even connected. I moved 6 years ago and still haven't put up an antenna for it.

It's written in Visual Basic I forget which version. Started in 1, got to 3 or so I think. It's obviously written to my Kenwood, but if someone wants the source code to hack for their own, they're welcome to ask me. I won't answer questions on it, though, it was too long ago!

 

[GripperDon]

Does that mean it's for sale? Is it the kind I can use with No-code technican license. I just read a sample test and I can pass that without any classes so I'll prpbably get that done in the next few weeks.

If it's not suitable for auto installation I would appreciate your and or Eastern PA's recommendations for a very compact unit (MO appealing) and associated antenna.

 

[Dalite]

Two of the best compact rigs (IMHO) are the Yaesu FT-857 and the Icom IC706 MK II G.

With the FT-857, you can use their ATAS-120 which is an all-band screwdriver antenna that is tuned by the radio. The only problem I can see is that it cannot be hatch mounted because of the material the hatch is made of. For this reason, you would have to go rooftop mount t get a groundplane.

The head can be remotely mounted (on both units).

I was considering mounting the head for my old FT-100 on the angled flat spot rear of the map lights on the overhead console. The sunroof motor is mounted directly behind that location, but there is enough access to get the "basket" mounted that holds the head unit.

The remote mounting kit gives 20 feet of cable for the head and 20 feet of cable for the microphone to be remotely mounted. This should allow the actual rig to be mounted in the rear and leave plenty of room for running the cables. This should give plenty of distance between the rig and any of the controllers on the CAN.

If you are interestred in 2m only, there are a number of compact rigs and antennas .

http://www.aesham.com is a good source to browse for gear.

 

[GripperDon]

Dalite Thanks so much gives me a place to get started.

 

[jaak]

Does that mean it's for sale? Is it the kind I can use with No-code technican license. I just read a sample test and I can pass that without any classes so I'll prpbably get that done in the next few weeks.

If it's not suitable for auto installation I would appreciate your and or Eastern PA's recommendations for a very compact unit (MO appealing) and associated antenna.

I'm not selling my 850! I love it, even though there are nice radios out now, it's still a great one.

I haven't looked at the new ones in so long, I have no idea what's out. But of course, you'll want to get something made by Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu or ???

Anyone remember the Yaesu FT101? Solid state, Tube finals, no computer. That was my first HF rig. And I modified the heck out of it, to improve performance.