Installing ham radio-which side of car to run wiring?

Fantastic job David! My IC-208H should be arriving Friday. I considered moving my 2720 from the shack to the car, I thought it might get less intermod there, but the 208 is a lot less $ and I need a dual-receive in the shack. My speaker will go between the driver's headrest uprights a couple inches behind my ears, more YL friendly there. The control head looks like it would be really difficult to see down there, is it hard to see? Regarding the guts installed under the trunk floor, I have concerns about heat there, it probably gets over 120 degrees there even without the radio on, plus the cooling fan will just recirculate heat. Maybe you live in a cooler climate. I might attach mine exposed in the trunk recess above the left storage bin, not sure yet.

 

The control head is easy to see, though it is a long way from me. The 2720 has a large display. The area under the hatch floor is quite large, and open from side to side all around the tray and even behind the secondary storage bin. There should be lots of room for air circulation. It would be at ambient temp. of course, but around here thats 85 F max. Above the floor it is often warmer if the car isn't running.

I hear you about passengers and the "noise". I use my radio to scan police freqs so I know what to avoid (accidents, road closures, etc), but only in rural areas. In the city I just scan the local repeaters.

 

dup. post during a sever crash.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Beale @ May 30 2007, 03:03 PM) [snapback]452314[/snapback]</div>

Must be nice to live somewhere cool! In Albuquerque NM it get's REALLY hot in the car. especially after being parked at work in the sun all day in the summer when it's in the upper 90's F or 100 F and the sun is directly overhead. I think I'd have the China Syndrome if I put it under the trunk floor. Coolest might be under driver's seat, but that's closer to the qrm generating locations and away from the 12v battery and antenna, although there may be a place in the fuse box under the hood (I understand there are some battery jumper posts?) where I might be able to get 12v. The Prius does offer some challenges to hams! I bought an FT-857D for my Sienna and then bought the Prius a couple months later. From what I've read HF is impossible in the Prius, or even when you are near one.

 

Did you tap power from the small aux battery in the back of the car? I want to install my Kenwood D-700a in my 06 Prius and have read that some folks are adding a separate battery for their radios?

 

I used the stock battery. As the radio is in the left rear, the power cord just has to run across the rear of the car (tied to the harness that is already there just below the removable hatch floor). I have yet to do it, but I recommend a relay in series, so the radio will be off when the car is off. You can get the relay signal from the accy power plug in the console. I have left the radio on accidentally a few times, once for three hours (I'm old!). No problem with the battery. Have to add that relay next spring!

The stock battery is fine for most uses, remembering that when the car is on it is backed by an electronic charger that can deliver upwards of 20A, well regulated at 13.8V in my car.

As far as HF noise goes, if you are not moving it's pretty quiet. You shouldn't be operating on HF when you're moving anyway!

However, I decided to not bother with HF. My car is geeky enough with the dual band VHF/UHF antenna. With an HF whip it would look like a "bumper car".

 

I just installed my Kenwood D700a in my 06 Prius. I was very pleased with how easy the install went. I have the radio faceplate on the dash and run the control line along the drivers side. The cable is hidden by the car's interior moulding. The RF deck is mounted in the back with the 12V supplied by the car's aux battery on the rear passenger side. The antenna is mounted on the top of the hatch. Simple install with no RF problems.

Kieran
VA3KS

 

After reading some of the posts... and more importantly, reviewing the attached photos... will be dusting off my old FT100... attaching my Diamond K400C mount (overkill, but already had one from years ago), and a dual-band 144Mhz/440Mhz antenna. Hope to be radioactive again after the weekend... DC-Metro...

 

Fantastic! I think my Prius gets better mpg with the additional radioactivity. If you have active local hams, you probably have a repeater where traffic qst's are announced, it's really nice to be able to avoid those tieups. On the other hand, yesterday I was delayed over an hour, there was no clear way to get home. Nothing like having an explosives semi involved in an accident on the freeway in a town with only 3 nearby bridges over the river.

 

I realize this is an old thread, but I thought I'd chime in -- since it's still searchable, it's still relevant for Prius owners wishing to add ham radios to their vehicles.

I have a 2006 Prius.

I've had a Yaesu FTM-350 installed for quite a while now. I used a cheap glass-mount dual-band antenna, and it's been working just fine for hitting the local repeaters.

I recently added HF! I installed an Icom IC-7000 and a cheap MFJ 20m monoband antenna. I used the MFJ trunk mount, and I'm not too happy with the construction, the solder points are weak. I will probably upgrade to a Diamond mount at some point.

I had read articles about tracking down all of the noisy interference when running HF. I don't know if it's the model of Prius I have, the type of antenna, or the location of the antenna (near the top of the hatch on the right side), but I'm not experiencing a lot of interference. I've been able to work Canada and the Caribbean from my commute in Northern Virginia with no real issues so far, knock on wood. I can hear some interference from the regenerative subsystem, but not enough to disrupt a strong signal. Might be difficult to work weak signals until I attack the grounding & shielding a little bit, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For power, I have a pair of wires from the battery, terminated in power pole connectors, into a 4-way power pole splitter, which the FTM-350 and IC-7000 are both plugged into. I have no problem running both radios at the same time.

The antenna is rather ridiculous, and I might take the approach above and mount it lower on the hatch with the new mount, because a 7 foot antenna looks stupid on top of the car. No idea how that'll affect tx/rx in HF. Hope this helps a future searcher.