I finally got around to putting my Yaesu FTM-350 into my Taurus. It’s a little tricky on the new Taurus’s getting through the firewall (unless you have the police interceptor package, then it comes with pre drilled holes). There’s an intermediate ECM module next to the brake pedal. We disconnected the 9 difference harnesses and then removed the module from its bracket. That opens up access to a nice unused rubber grommet to punch through with the power cable to the battery. Which is conveniently mounted on the other side of the firewall where the grommet comes out. At that time, we ran some cat5e from the dashboard down the driver’s side to the trunk. This will serve as the control cable for the remote head on the dash to the trunk unit. The microphone is ran down the driver’s side and goes from the trunk and comes out under the driver’s seat. We terminated that into a R12 jack and plugged the microphone into it. The FTM-350 uses regular cat5e cables for the control head and RJ12 for the microphone, so there was no need to order the 20ft cable from Yaesu. We mounted the transceiver in an empty compartment inside the trunk just above the left rear well inside the trunk. It was very convenient place to put it and it allowed for us to have a nice junction point for my transceiver, duplexer and wiring to meet in a nice small open space. We mounted one ¼ wave VHF ham split and one ¼ UHF ham split NMO mounts with Laird antennas. SWR is perfect on the trunk. On the Taurus trunks, you’re extremely limited to what you can actually get on the lid of the trunk where you can place the antennas and keep the symmetry of the antennas. There’s only a few places where the external trunk metal is accessible inside the trunk- where you can get your hands into for mounting the NMO and being able to reach it. Here are some pictures from the install.
A special thanks to, Luke-KB9UIZ for another 9 hour day doing another install together.
A special thanks to, Luke-KB9UIZ for another 9 hour day doing another install together.
