WA8LMF Home Page | Main Ham Page | Mail Mobile Page |Updated 19 March 2009 |
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Mobile Installation In 2005 Toyota Prius |
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Photos of the installation are below.
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Click on thumbnails for full-size pictures. (Pictures open in separate windows.) |
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View from driver's seat of mounted control heads for Kenwood TM-D700 APRS radio and Yaesu FT-100 HF transceiver. The laptop, running UIview and MapPoint, is supported by a commercial Ram Mounts "RamPod" mounting system. This tripod system uses soft-drawn 5/8 inch aluminum rods that can be bent by hand to fit any installation. The bottom of the rods lock into brackets with setscrews that slip under the seat rails. |
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View of mounted control heads from
passenger side. There is a lot of room between the front of the
console and the underside of the dashboard for mounting hardware. Note
the GE mobile radio speaker mounted behind the radio control heads. The
device at the left is the tripod head and ball-joint of the RamPod mount for
the computer. The bracket, bent from .090" aluminum, is bolted to the underside of the plastic dash with a single 1/4" bolt and nut. The screw head, inside the dash, is re-enforced with a 2-inch diameter fender washer to avoid cracking the plastic surface. The surface of the bracket that is against the plastic dash has a piece of ribbed industrial rubber matting glued to it to provide friction to prevent it from rotating. Click Here to download a drawing with the dimensions of this bracket, in Acrobat .PDF format |
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View of the RamPod "foot" mount. This view is of the left rail of the passenger seat. The seat is pushed all the way to the rear to expose the hardware. Normally the aluminum rod is covered with a piece of black cable loom for a more finished appearance. The black box behind the rod is a DC-DC converter to provide 19VDC for the laptop computer from the 12 VDC system. |
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This is the trunk area of the car. A second, hidden, storage area is located under the removable floor panel. . |
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The hidden "lower trunk" is lined with
a polyethylene "tub". I cut an aluminum plate to exactly fit this tub and
mounted all the radio hardware on it. This plate, insulated from the
car's chassis by the plastic tub) also serves as a common point ground for
all equipment powered by the second battery (An Optima Spiracell Yellowtop
deep-cycle AGM). The objective was to avoid having the 20-30 amps of DC
current used by the ham gear from circulating on the car's chassis and
possibly interfering with the car's complex electronic control systems.
The car's own 12 volt battery system is located in the right-rear corner of
the trunk. As a result, I had a very short cable run to connect my
added battery system to the OEM battery via a Hellroaring Technology battery
isolator switch. The carpeted panel over the front edge of the opening
covers the 240 VDC hybrid battery. The main chassis of the Yaesu FT100 is at the left side of the picture. The Kenwood D700 chassis is located under the passenger seat. The layout on the plate was planned with the possibility of accommodating the main chassis of a Kenwood TS2000 in the future. |
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Two antennas installed with no-holes hard mounts. A Yaesu ATAS-100 mini-screwdriver for 40 through 6M is on the left side. A Comet SB-14 6-2-450 antenna is mounted to the right. The details of the home-brew brackets are shown in the next two pictures. |
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These home-brew mounting brackets are
bent from .090 mild steel. Each one has a piece of rubber cut from an old
inner tube glued to it to avoid scratching the surface it is bolted to. The
horizontal surface of the "wing" is punched with a suitable hole (5/8"
for a SO-232 bulkhead connector for mounting the ATAS-100, or 3/4" for
installing an NMO mount for the VHF/UHF antenna). Click Here to download a drawing with the dimensions of this bracket, in Acrobat .PDF format |
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The antenna mount bracket installed. You remove the two bolts securing the hatch lifter rod bottom end, slip the antenna mount between the hatch sidewall and the lifter, and re-insert the bolts. (Prop up the hatch door with an old broom handle or stick before unbolting the support.) There is just enough clearance between the trunk lid and the sides of the hatch opening for the mounts to not interfere with the movement of the trunk lid. |