Ham radio and Transit Electronics ???

[Hanover Fiste]

Hi

 

Are there any hams here who have installed radio gear in a Transit?

 

I'm thinking about an HF transceiver, running about 100 watts of SSB voice. The antenna would be mounted on a modified trailer hitch in the receiver of the towing package I had installed.

 

The truck is a 2020 Transit XLT wagon...  LOADED with electronics, and I'm concerned about RF energy possibly getting into all those gizmo systems.

 

Anybody had experience with this sort of an installation?

 

To the Hams here...   73s

 

 

[George_97220]

100 watts SSB isn't a REAL lot of power.
I'm sure Ford tested the various electronic assemblies for RF susceptibility at much higher power.

You could probably ask your dealer. They would tap-dance you around until they found someone who knew for sure!

Where were you thinking about mounting the radio?

fordtransitconnectforum.com/topic/8228-anyone-have-a-scanner-or-2-way-radio-in-the-tc/
 

[Hanover Fiste]

Hello George

 

Where to mount the radio...  now THERE'S the rub!!!

 

Gone are the days when we could just hang a rig from the bottom of the dash; that eliminated my preferred choice, an old Collins KWM-2 and

it's mobile power supply inverter!

 

Instead, a much smaller radio that I have around, a Kenwood TS-140S, is the choice. Newer radios are of course much smaller yet, but I don't

have to go out and BUY the TS-140S; it's already here.

 

Tentatively, I'm thinking in terms of fabricating a mount to go on the passenger seat, secured by the seat belt. Design it to be easily removable;

mobile operation won't be a constant thing here. Power will be tapped directly at the battery via a cable thru the firewall and into the glove box;

when not in use the cable lives there, out of the way.

 

I may be crazy, but I'm contemplating mainly mobile 160 meter operation! Back in high school and college I did that a lot on AM (retuned the

radio in my old Volkswagen Bus for receiving). Antenna was a center loaded 8 foot whip on a bumper mount... I can do that again, but on a

trailer hitch instead.

 

Rag chewing and DX chasing on cold winter nights was a whole lot of fun, even with an antenna with microscopic efficiency and low power

(about 25 to 50 watts).

 

I'm definitely dating myself here, but the local 160 mobile nuts used to have some fun... we'd often go to the drive in movies and park together.

As the sun was going down but before the movie began, we'd produce a florescent tube from the trunk or cargo area, and with the mike button

locked down we'd freak other patrons out by approaching the antenna. That big loading coil acted like a Tesla coil (the antenna usually had a

corona discharge at the tip), and two or three feet from the antenna the intense electrostatic field would cause the tube to glow at it's normal

brilliance, even with the low powers we were running !!!