Mobile Radios - Let's make this easier

[N3XFD]

I've operated mobile for over a decade now from my trusty  1994 Toyota pickup using first an ICOM-2100 and then later a Yaesu FT-1500.

For Christmas I bought my wife a brand new Honda Element, and figuring out where to put the radio without running afoul of the SIX airbags or messing up the vehicle's ergonomic interior is really giving me a headache.

Which got me to thinking....

Why aren't mobile rigs sized to the same dimensions as factory radios?  I can flip through Crutchfield, pick out a receiver made by Sony, Panasonic, or many other brands and easily pop it in just about any car.  Sure there may be some shims or specialty brackets, but by and large it's an easy install and the outcome looks clean and professional.

Many of the latest rigs already include AM/FM receive.  If the manufacturers added a jack for the factory AM/FM antenna, a set of stereo outs, and an AUX-IN on the front panel for the ubiquitous iPod, I think many HAM's wouldn't hesitate to throw out their car's stereo in favor of a 2m / 70cm transceiver mounted cleanly in the dashboard.

So how about it?  Let's get some of our 600,000 licensed hams to petition ICOM, Yaesu, and Kenwood to make it easier on all of us to install our mobile rigs.

73,
N3XFD
Scott Drumm

[K0BG]

Well, Scott, apparently you haven't looked around. There are several radios which will fit in a DIN slot quite nicely. In fact, if you go to my web site, look in the Photo Gallery under Other Installs, you see quite a few radios stuck in DIN slots. However.....

Most of the time, there isn't enough ventilation to keep a transceiver cool. Modern AM/FM/CD/DVD units aren't all that powerful. It is the amplifiers they connect them to which are. The Element has a wonderful sound system, right out of the bag, but the amps for it are placed for maximum cooling; the radio isn't.

Years ago, while working for CW Electronics in Denver, I got a chance to meet Dr. Tokuzo Inoue, the founder of Icom. He ask me what I'd like to see Icom make. I told him more or less what you suggested. I'm fairly sure he didn't design any radios just because I asked. In the mean time, LSI circuitry came into wide use, and the result was all of the "mini" things we take for granted these days.

As I alluded to above, there are just a few things you can't miniaturize, and one of those is heat. We could start using Class D amps, but then the filtering becomes a problem, and we're back to the size problem.

We can still wish, can't we?

Alan, KØBG
www.k0bg.com

[AA4PB]

In my case I don't think I would like the HF ham rig in the dash. Its too far away for comfortable tuning. No problem to push a memory button on the AM/FM radio but it wouldn't be very comfortable for tuning in HF SSB stations. A "transmission hump" mount puts the radio much closer.

[K2YO]

Alan,

One option that would work is they make the remote head fit in a DIN slot. Then the heat generating guts of the radio could be mounted under a seat or some other hidden place where it can get more cooling.

Bernie