2001 Chevy Silverado

[brutalpilot514]

Assuming nothing comes up out of the blue I will be purchasing a 2001 3/4 ton Chevy with a duramax diesel. It has the big console in between the two front seats. I'm trying to figure out the best way to fit 2 or 3 radios. Right now I'm thinking my best bet will be to take out the cassette deck that's seperate from the main head unit and adapting that portion of the console to fit them. If I can find another place for my CB Radio I will in order to reserve that space for a 2 meter and a scanner. But I am open to any suggestions y'all may have since y'all know more than I do about this kind of stuff. Also what would be the best way to route power cords through the firewall and just as important getting the antenna cables to the outside of the truck. If there are any antenna recommendations I will appreciate that as well as locations for those antennas. Thank you in advance I look forward to seeing some of your ideas.

 

[INDY72]

As far as antenna installs.... If your not in need of height clearance.... NMO mounted drill holes in roof and run cables up side rear of cab to your hole sites. If you need to park it in tight spots height wise.... Hood lip mount run cables same as you would power cables but on opposite side if you can. Since your talking multiple antennas... You may end up with a ball mount or high gain model centered on front of the bed rail for the CB, an NMO mount for the HAM on one side of the bedrail, and NMO for the scanner on the opposite rail. Drill a single hole through the bedrail, and cab and run cables with a rubber seal. There are many options on antenna mounting, but the best bet is if you are able drill holes and put in NMO.

I did a install in a Pontiac Montanna, center roof front was my scanner ant, left rear was my VHF High ant, right rear was CB ant. It worked out pretty good. All three started out as mag mounts, then were upgraded to NMO installs using diamond ants.

 

[brutalpilot514]

Thanks I appreciate it. the . didn't work out on the 01 but those antenna ideas will apply on whatever i do end up getting. Thanks

 

[tbiggums]

I have a 2001 Duramax that had the cassette deck and the whole console thing. I removed the cassette deck and CD holder, and built a custom mount for 2-3 radios.

The latest setup has a VHF Kenwood TK-5710 dash mount, a Motorola Spectra UHF 100 watt remote mount, and a PRO-197 scanner.

When you remove the cassette deck, you'll find there's an air duct under there. I had to make a custom mount out of aluminum angle stock to allow the radios to mount on top of it. I didn't want to remove the storage console between the seats, so that ruled out any commercially available console.

I drilled a couple of holes in the firewall and ran the power wires through them with rubber grommets.

The connector to the cassette deck has a pin on it that works great for ignition sense. It's got 12V on it whenever the ignition is on, and when you turn the ignition off and remove the key, it stays on until you open the door, just like the stereo. It's only good for a few hundred milliamps, so I have it connected to a relay so that it can power the PRO-197.

For the antennas, I have three NMO hole mounts on the roof.

The only problem I ran into was some kind of ground loop issue with the scanner, where I'd get some alternator whine in the audio. When used with a mag mount antenna, there was no problem, but once I installed the NMO on the roof, you'd hear alternator whine from the scanner as soon as the antenna coax shield was connected. Rather than messing with DC power filters, I just re-installed the BNC connector on the antenna coax without making the shield connection. This totally eliminated the noise. I wouldn't do this on the two-way radio antennas, but it's ok for a scanner install. Fortuantely the two-way radios don't have any alternator whine problem...

Here's a pic of a previous setup, before the scanner was installed. The radio on the bottom is a VHF Spectra that I've since replaced with a Kenwood TK-5710. The scanner is installed on top of the TK-5710, and the UHF Spectra A9 head is installed on top of scanner (had to ditch the DEK, as there wasn't enough room).

I haven't had a chance to take any pics of the latest setup yet, but I'll try and post them when I get a chance.