Antenna Mobile Mk. 3

[AF1UD]

Hey Everyone! New car time, which means it needs some radio equipment. I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out. I had some problems with my last car, but this one I'm keeping as long as I can.

We have here a Ford Explorer 2025 St-Line, with the Havis console. This was my first time installing a Havis console and I must say, it's a great solid piece of equipment with plenty of room to hide wires. The instructions for the console itself were straight forward, but the accessories like the arm rests weren't. I ended up drilling all the way through the console for the arm rests until I went to mount the mics and realized I could slide the nuts in the channel... (I also wondered why the screws weren't long enough, hahaha).

I have a NX-5700 and 5800 sharing one full feature head, followed up by 2 XG-100Ms. This gives me a lot of redundancy and for once I actually think I have too much equipment in the vehicle. Before I just had 1 XG-100M, but lets future proof it by adding another. I was able to mount the bodies in the trunk on the pullout to access the under space. In a lot of other Havis installs the full radio gets mounted in the console, here... there wasn't enough room for that but I hadn't planned on them going in there anyway.

In the roof I drilled 3 holes -- man those hurt. I'd only had the vehicle for a week when I plunked those holes in. Sitting on top of the holes are 3 EM-Wave EM-43002 antennas. These aren't my first EM-Wave antennas, I had previously used a M22001 (UHF/7-800) and really liked it for the waterproofing. These have been great so far!

Overall, very happy with how it came out!

 

[03msc]

Nice! Very clean. Personal use or do you do volunteer fire/ems or similar? I like a clean setup but if it's strictly for personal use that takes it up a notch higher when someone takes the time to properly install things. Nice ride, too!

 

[AF1UD]

Personal, volunteer fire/ems, and other organizations. The biggest notch up is the havis cup holders. those things are the bees knees.

 

[mmckenna]

Looks good.

One recommendation that will save you some issues down the road:

Get some cable clips and run the mic cables through those. Use one of the radio plate mounting screws to hold it in place. This takes the strain off the microphone connector. We do that with all ours, and it reduces stress on the mic plug. Easy thing to do that's saved us a lot of money on replacing microphones over the years.

 

[AF1UD]

What size do you use?

 

[mmckenna]

And get magnet mic mounts if you don't already have them. It requires a modification to the mic to make the HUB work, but it was a popular addition to our cars. No fumbling trying to hang the mic back up.

 

[mmckenna]

What size do you use?

Can't remember, might be 1/4", might be 3/16".

 

[mmckenna]

What size do you use?

Looked it up from the last time I purchased them. 3/16"

https://www.amazon.com/16-Inch-Black-Cable-Clamp/dp/B0054RRXM2/?th=1

 

[AF1UD]

Looked it up from the last time I purchased them. 3/16"

https://www.amazon.com/16-Inch-Black-Cable-Clamp/dp/B0054RRXM2/?th=1

Thanks! Magnet mics are there (you just can't see them) haha!

 

[prcguy]

Hey Everyone! New car time, which means it needs some radio equipment. I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out. I had some problems with my last car, but this one I'm keeping as long as I can.

We have here a Ford Explorer 2025 St-Line, with the Havis console. This was my first time installing a Havis console and I must say, it's a great solid piece of equipment with plenty of room to hide wires. The instructions for the console itself were straight forward, but the accessories like the arm rests weren't. I ended up drilling all the way through the console for the arm rests until I went to mount the mics and realized I could slide the nuts in the channel... (I also wondered why the screws weren't long enough, hahaha).

I have a NX-5700 and 5800 sharing one full feature head, followed up by 2 XG-100Ms. This gives me a lot of redundancy and for once I actually think I have too much equipment in the vehicle. Before I just had 1 XG-100M, but lets future proof it by adding another. I was able to mount the bodies in the trunk on the pullout to access the under space. In a lot of other Havis installs the full radio gets mounted in the console, here... there wasn't enough room for that but I hadn't planned on them going in there anyway.

In the roof I drilled 3 holes -- man those hurt. I'd only had the vehicle for a week when I plunked those holes in. Sitting on top of the holes are 3 EM-Wave EM-43002 antennas. These aren't my first EM-Wave antennas, I had previously used a M22001 (UHF/7-800) and really liked it for the waterproofing. These have been great so far!

Overall, very happy with how it came out!

That's a lot of radio there. But the two Harris radios will receive 30-50MHz, where is your VHF lo band antennas? You could be scanning VHF lo and contributing to the VHF lo band logs.

 

[Skypilot007]

Looks great. Can you tell me which NMO mounts you used? I'm getting ready to do an install on my new explorer and wasn't sure which NMO mounts were the right ones. Thanks.

 

[AF1UD]

That's a lot of radio there. But the two Harris radios will receive 30-50MHz, where is your VHF lo band antennas? You could be scanning VHF lo and contributing to the VHF lo band logs.

I'll check into that!

Looks great. Can you tell me which NMO mounts you used? I'm getting ready to do an install on my new explorer and wasn't sure which NMO mounts were the right ones. Thanks.

I used whatever the antenna farm had in stock for regular ones. Loss doesn't really matter on those short runs even for simplex 800mhz.

 

[mmckenna]

Looks great. Can you tell me which NMO mounts you used? I'm getting ready to do an install on my new explorer and wasn't sure which NMO mounts were the right ones. Thanks.

Larsen, Laird, PC-Tel. Those are the only brands you should use.

Don't drill holes in a perfectly good vehicle and install Chinese crap. Tram, Browning, any ham radio brands should be a hard pass.

 

[N0ZQR]

Bees Knees, that's a term I haven't heard in a while!!

 

[kayn1n32008]

Larsen, Laird, PC-Tel. Those are the only brands you should use.

Yep, can't say this enough. Lip mounts/multiangle lip mounts are GARBAGE, and significantly more expensive than a drilled NMO mount.

Don't drill holes in a perfectly good vehicle and install Chinese crap.

And don't attach Chinese garbage radios.

Tram, Browning, any ham radio brands should be a hard pass.

Larsen, PCTel, Laird and EMWave are the ONLY brands I will recommend or use myself.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Hey Everyone! New car time, which means it needs some radio equipment. I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out. I had some problems with my last car, but this one I'm keeping as long as I can.

We have here a Ford Explorer 2025 St-Line, with the Havis console. This was my first time installing a Havis console and I must say, it's a great solid piece of equipment with plenty of room to hide wires. The instructions for the console itself were straight forward, but the accessories like the arm rests weren't. I ended up drilling all the way through the console for the arm rests until I went to mount the mics and realized I could slide the nuts in the channel... (I also wondered why the screws weren't long enough, hahaha).

I have a NX-5700 and 5800 sharing one full feature head, followed up by 2 XG-100Ms. This gives me a lot of redundancy and for once I actually think I have too much equipment in the vehicle. Before I just had 1 XG-100M, but lets future proof it by adding another. I was able to mount the bodies in the trunk on the pullout to access the under space. In a lot of other Havis installs the full radio gets mounted in the console, here... there wasn't enough room for that but I hadn't planned on them going in there anyway.

In the roof I drilled 3 holes -- man those hurt. I'd only had the vehicle for a week when I plunked those holes in. Sitting on top of the holes are 3 EM-Wave EM-43002 antennas. These aren't my first EM-Wave antennas, I had previously used a M22001 (UHF/7-800) and really liked it for the waterproofing. These have been great so far!

Overall, very happy with how it came out!

Fantastic job. Excellent choice with the EMWave antennas. I have a wideband VHF 1/4 from EMWave and I don't think I will ever go with another brand on my personal vehicles in the future.