A bit of background. Been a ham for about 3 1/2 years now. When I decided I wanted to put a mobile in my truck I went down to the basement and found the transmission hump console with my dad's CB from the 1980s and replaced the CB with my dual-band radio. I've been using that and a mag-mount (yeah, I know) and plugging into the 12V outlet since then. Honestly one nice thing about that setup was that I could pull out the radio for long trips with my wife and use the antenna on the magmount for my SDS100 instead.
But all those "just drill the hole" posts by @mmckenna kept nagging at me. I was really hoping he'd start his east coast NMO installation tour this fall but that just didn't happen, so I finally caved and went another direction.
If I had become a ham in my 20s and was looking at installing antennas on vehicles for many years, I might have bought the tools and learned to do it myself, but at this point in life there are some things that I just pay an expert to do, so I took my truck to a local radio shop and let them put in two NMO mounts and run the power for me. I figured if I was going to do a permanent install I might as well have two NMOs and use one for my radio and one for a scanner.
I actually had the NMOs installed in mid-October, but I ordered a console too and wanted to wait and post once I had the install finished. The console came last Friday and fortunately the weather here was quite mild for December so I installed it on Saturday.
Sorry if these pictures aren't great, but hopefully you'll get the idea. The rear antenna is a Larsen 150/450/800 for the scanner, and the front is a Larsen NMO2/70B. Radio is an Anytone AT-D578 and console is a Jotto Desk. I had them install a Lind shutdown timer on the power, and I put a Stridsberg signal limiter on the scanner just in case.
Oh, and a big shout-out to mmckenna for his advice on antenna placement!
But all those "just drill the hole" posts by @mmckenna kept nagging at me. I was really hoping he'd start his east coast NMO installation tour this fall but that just didn't happen, so I finally caved and went another direction.
If I had become a ham in my 20s and was looking at installing antennas on vehicles for many years, I might have bought the tools and learned to do it myself, but at this point in life there are some things that I just pay an expert to do, so I took my truck to a local radio shop and let them put in two NMO mounts and run the power for me. I figured if I was going to do a permanent install I might as well have two NMOs and use one for my radio and one for a scanner.I actually had the NMOs installed in mid-October, but I ordered a console too and wanted to wait and post once I had the install finished. The console came last Friday and fortunately the weather here was quite mild for December so I installed it on Saturday.
Sorry if these pictures aren't great, but hopefully you'll get the idea. The rear antenna is a Larsen 150/450/800 for the scanner, and the front is a Larsen NMO2/70B. Radio is an Anytone AT-D578 and console is a Jotto Desk. I had them install a Lind shutdown timer on the power, and I put a Stridsberg signal limiter on the scanner just in case.
Oh, and a big shout-out to mmckenna for his advice on antenna placement!
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