Fitting the radio

Great service from Prestige Communications - ordered radio 2pm Tuesday - arrived Cranbourne 12noon Thursday from W.A. - with Xmas etc I wasn't expecting it until next week!!

OK so now to fit it.
Electronics shouldn't be a problem -squeezing the wires and antenna cable through the firewall should be fun.
As battery is on drivers side - thread 12v wires through that side and antenna wire through passenger side??

Where/how to fix antenna?
Have one of those big fat nudge bars with no fitting for an antenna.

Q1 - Can you get a bolt on bracket for this.
or
Q2 - Can it be fixed to the black plastic type base??
Antenna is AE 4012k2 - not that big.

Been looking but havn't spotted any trucks with antennas on nudge bars as yet.

Any suggestions/warnings would be helpful.

Thanks

Jeff.

Q1-you can get stuff like this,
Bullbar Mounts

Q2,i think you will need something to earth,not plastic.
Krafty pg made a bracket and used a guard bolt near the bonnet hinge to mount it.
He would be able to explain it better.

Thanks Ian,

My bar is 240mm and those fittings and others Iv'e seen only go up to 76mm.
Might have to create something unless someone else has a solution - I cant be the only one around with this problem.
Did think that about the plastic - just hoping I suppose.

Jeff.

240mm? Nissan nudge bars are 76mm tubing.

Have fun trying to get ANY cable through passenger side of firewall
There is a spare/free grommet just above the main grommet above the go pedal behind all that sound deadner you can fit both coax and power through if you prepaerd to splice coax.

I got 4 UHF radios from Prestige about 4 years ago and like you the service was great.

I also have the nudge bar that without a decent bracket wouldn't provide a great mounting place so I manufactured a bracket to use the top bolt of the left hand front panel. Used stainless steel for the bracket and bent it around the angles so the the finished mount sat above the front panel and stands almost dead vertical. Was a little stuffing around getting every angle right but it still only took about 30 mins. I might never get a 15 foot fishing rod (I mean antenna) on the mount but I wont need to so this suits my needs perfectly.

As for wires through the firewall on the passenger side that was easier than making the bracket. I've run all my wires through the grommet in the passenger side firewall and down into the passenger floor well then off to either the center console for the radio and camera etc or down to the tub under the plastic panels that hold the carpet down. Used a bit more wire coming from the battery to the left side but it was the easiest path I found

Fitting radio D 40

Thanks Crafty pg,

Another alternative for me to consider.

Am hoping to fix it up front if I can and ideally would like to be able to have it up high when needing to be serious (for the CSR trip) then be able to lower it out of the way (of drongos in car parks etc) and for the 90% of the time its just there for the ride.

Have brake controller wires going through right side and may try to follow them with the 12v radio wires and poke the antenna through the left side as you have done.

Have had a couple of little ops on both arms (skin cancers) so out of action for a couple of weeks - then Ill be into it.

Ill see if any more suggestions come through.

Thanks again

Jeff.

Its time

I am fitting the CB and have managed to get the antenna cable through the passenger side without much trouble.
Have read on another website that the antenna cable should be kept in 3ft lengths i.e. 3-6-9ft etc.(Yankee website)

My cable is 4.5m and after threading through the firewall etc I have quite a bit of surplus cable.

Can I cut this to length or should it be kept intact??

Thanks .


Jeff.

Cut to length.

Will do,
Hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere else but needed to check.

Thanks Jason.

Jeff.

The cable is (should be) a shielded cable that carries the weak radio-induced electrical current from the antenna to the radio. The longer that wire, the more voltage drop across its length (ie the weaker the signal received by the radio).

Because of the shield, the cable length shouldn't make any difference at all to the received wavelength, unlike the antenna matching that you need to do (electrical length of the antenna must be close to particular fractions of the received wavelength for optimum reception and transmission). The signal simply passes along the cable as an electrical impulse.

Keeping the shield intact, with no small-radius bends in the cable, is more important.

Radio not working, me not happy.

OK , I recon Iv'e done it all right but radio is not transmitting and not receiving just static.
I know someones out there as I have a hand held which is picking up all that swearing and mindless chatter.

The weak link has to be the PL 259 connector which is the only bit I had to make up.
Looking at the Web, all the PL259s I saw were a just little different to mine(surprise,surprise). I think the one I have is assembled so - peal back the outer casing exposing the wire braid, then peal that back to expose the white centre core.
Screw the PL259 down onto the cable which in the process has the wire braid squashed up inside the PL259 with the white core poking up through the centre, expose those wires seal/attach with solder.

Seems simple enough!!

So what have I done wrong???


Jeff.

Are you sure none of the braid is touching where the centre wire touches?
The braid should only be touching where you feed the cable into the plug,nowhere else.

I had the same prob till i soldered the centre wire, once i done that prob was solved.

a bit off topic...

but does anyone know if it is possible to have two antennas (say a 6db and 9db) connected to the one UHF radio?

i ask because i got a free heavy duty 9db antenna, but i've been told thats best only for big open areas (desert) and i've got my small 3.5db antenna which i normally use on general road trips/day trips.

i dont really want to install a 2nd UHF (which i have in the shed), but i'll do it if theres no other option hmm

I'd grab a multimeter and test:

* centre conductor to shield, should be open circuit. If it's not, any transmission attempt could destroy the final output of the radio

* centre conductor on PL259 plug to centre of aerial mount - should be minor resistance

* outer casing of PL259 to the ground of the antenna base, should be a short (0 ohms)

The last two are usually connectivity related. Check both ends of the cable, re-solder where needed.

As for two antennae - no, you can't, especially with mismatched gains. The higher gain antenna will give you better reception and transmission anyway - that'd be the one to use.

Some improvement

Redid the pl259 connection and instead of leaving about 1/2 inch of wire braid exposed I left about 1/4 inch then screwed the connection down onto the cable which meant that the wire braid is not pushed right up inside the connection. Resoldered the tip, hooked it up and presto - voices.
But so far my little handhelds wont talk to it and visa versa.
Hopefully that just me - Ill try to decipher the Chineese English written handbook of both radios and see if I can improve some more.


Old Tony - Iv'e got a multimeter but no idea how it works and dont know an Ohm from an Ahm - thanks anyway.


Jeff.

Jeff, the old multimeter is pretty easy for this sort of test. Let's see how good my instructions can be.

To test for an electrical connection:

Set the multimeter to check for resistance. This will be in the section labelled with the Omega symbol, marked "Ohms" or similar. The black lead should be in COM (common, or black) and the red lead should be in the normal input (not 10A). Connect one of the leads to one side of what you're testing, and one lead to the other - red or black, doesn't matter for this test. Connecting the multimeter across a live power source in THIS mode can destroy the meter. If you get a reading of 0, there's a very good, solid connection. If you get anything else, the connection isn't very good.

You can also check voltages. Set the meter to read "Volts", make sure the leads are plugged into the multimeter the same as before. Now, touch the black lead to the negative side of the power, and the red side to the positive. You should see the current voltage on the display. Practice with an AA battery first, before moving up to anything dangerous to the meter or yourself. Remember too: household power (or inverter output) is AC and batteries are DC. Your car alternator puts out AC and but is changed by the regulator to DC before it gets to the battery.

Confused? Hopefully not. If in doubt, any sales guy in Jaycar or a Dick Smith Electronics store ought to be able to help too.

Tony,
Ill give that a go over the next few days - will need to get a 9v battery for the multimeter plus Iv'e had enough of radios for a while.

Thanks

Jeff

maddogrc said:

a bit off topic...

but does anyone know if it is possible to have two antennas (say a 6db and 9db) connected to the one UHF radio?

i ask because i got a free heavy duty 9db antenna, but i've been told thats best only for big open areas (desert) and i've got my small 3.5db antenna which i normally use on general road trips/day trips.

i dont really want to install a 2nd UHF (which i have in the shed), but i'll do it if theres no other option hmm

Click to expand...

The only way is to use a three way splitter box with a switch but you could only use one antenna at at time.