F350 - Major Install

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ChatoB

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Dec 19, 2002
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24
Location
San Marcos, CA
Hey Fellas, I'm a long-time member/lurker, but rare poster. I thought you guys might get a kick out of seeing the radios I installed in my 2004 F350. I needed the radios because I was a freelance breaking-news video photographer for six years in the San Diego area. Simultaneously I was a car repossessor and thus needed a large truck to do that job. Essentially, I was working my repo accounts while monitoring public-safety comms for news leads. I would shoot a news story, drop a dub of the tape to the local TV stations, and then get back to working my repo accounts. It was a cool gig until I became a family man and got a 9-5 job.

Anyway, what you see in the pictures are the following radios:

Motorola X9000 – High-band VHF
Motorola X9000 – Low-band VHF
Motorola X9000 – UHF
Two Motorola 800MHz Astro Spectras
Two Motorola 800MHz Analog Spectras
Icom 706 MKIIG
Uniden BC780XLT

Also installed was a Panasonic PDRC connected to a Gamber Johnson CF-18 docking station. My CF-18 has internet access (via Sprint air-card) and GPS.

There are two auxiliary batteries installed (via an isolator) inside of a tool-box in the bed. All the radios are powered off those batteries and not the truck battery.

Two of the pictures were taken during the install about a year and a half ago. The antennas (9 of them... all NMO-mount) have been switched out to low-profile antennas since these pictures were taken.

Whadda you think?
 

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ChatoB

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Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
24
Location
San Marcos, CA
A few more pics...

Here's a few more pictures... (Yes, the flares have been moved...)
 

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ChatoB

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
24
Location
San Marcos, CA
Ya, I installed everything myself... it took quite a bit of time, but I was pleased with the outcome. My wife says I'm OCD.
 

KC0QNB

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Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
730
Location
Gothenburg, NE
Wow, I haven't seen that many radios in a mobile before, I did read an article a couple of years ago about a guy, also a TV reporter that had seven rigs in an Excursion, and he also had a custom made audio mixer in the console for the radio audio output.
After rereading the first posts, made me wonder if it is the same guy?
 
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N3LLO

Member
Joined
May 17, 2005
Messages
44
Location
New Ipswich, NH
VERY nice! I, too, have an F-350 ('07) that I'm looking to do an install in. (The reason to get the dual alternators and captain's chairs!) I've been looking at the Jottodesk stuff. Thanks for the reference to the Troy products stuff, that gives me some ideas as well. Did you just do with their floor mount, and which console?

I'm also going back and forth regarding how/where to mount the antennas. I've been contemplating getting a "back rack" to mount the antennas on rather than turning the roof into swiss cheese. :)

If you have any advice, words of wisdom, or other ideas please PM me.

I'd be looking to install a dual band ham rig (pref. a kenwood TH-V71A), an ICOM uhf rig (either a 221 or 6061 for GMRS) and a BCD-996T.

- Matt
 

radionerd13669

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Jun 19, 2007
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368
Location
Northern,New York
Nice install! Thats alot of radios maybe to many for me they would end up out the window lmao.Very nice

I thought I saw pic of this truck before?
 
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