- Joined
- Jun 2, 2018
- Messages
- 187
- Reaction score
- 117
- Points
- 43
- Location
- Cass, WVa
- Vehicle Year
- 2004
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 4.0 SOHC
- Transmission
- Automatic
My Bro-n-law and I just finished rebuilding my (new to me) '04 Ford Ranger Edge 4x4, now I need to put a Ham radio in it. I decided to go with another Motorola Maratrac, a remote head 110w VHF transceiver. There's a lot of these floating around since the FCC narrow band mandate rendered them obsolete, and only require a little tinkering to get them to operate down to 144mhz. From the factory their operating range is 146-174mhz, so it's no big stretch.
I already have one in my '02 Ranger XLT, set to 85w output, love it, but even with the 99 channel head not having a VFO on a ham radio is a drawback..
I'll post more pics as the install progresses.
A scrap piece of aluminum and a couple pieces of steal for the mounting plate to mount the radio "suitcase" behind the truck seat.
I'm mounting the radio in place of one of the jump seats, I never use those anyway, the bolt holes for the seat are a good solid place to mount the rig.
The radio box mounted, good and solid in case of an accident. It locks onto the mount and can easily be swapped out for a different band or carried inside to be re-programed.
Next is to mount the control head, this one is a 99 ch model, they also came with 8 and 16 ch control heads, all interchangeable. The antenna and cables need installed also, all I lack is the mounting bracket for the control head, but I can make one of those. I have just a little over $100 in the whole thing off eBay.
73! KD8VBV and KD8ZGX
I already have one in my '02 Ranger XLT, set to 85w output, love it, but even with the 99 channel head not having a VFO on a ham radio is a drawback..
I'll post more pics as the install progresses.
A scrap piece of aluminum and a couple pieces of steal for the mounting plate to mount the radio "suitcase" behind the truck seat.
I'm mounting the radio in place of one of the jump seats, I never use those anyway, the bolt holes for the seat are a good solid place to mount the rig.
The radio box mounted, good and solid in case of an accident. It locks onto the mount and can easily be swapped out for a different band or carried inside to be re-programed.
Next is to mount the control head, this one is a 99 ch model, they also came with 8 and 16 ch control heads, all interchangeable. The antenna and cables need installed also, all I lack is the mounting bracket for the control head, but I can make one of those. I have just a little over $100 in the whole thing off eBay.
73! KD8VBV and KD8ZGX