Must Be Art:
Center console view with the IC-7100 installed and working. The coil cord goes to the microphone. The cupholders are not useful for drinks, but are still available for holding small items, such as microphones.
Must Be Art:
Here you can barely see the red/black 10-gauge zip cord routed along the existing wiring conduit, and spliced (yellow heatshrink) to the red wires pre-attached to the black fuseholders.
Must Be Art:
Tiny battery in a crowded engine compartment. The firewall looks totally inaccessible from this angle. Removing the air box right behind the positive battery terminal allows just enough access.
Must Be Art:
Photo by Fit4Spl showing the firewall grommet from the engine compartment, with the airbox top removed.
Must Be Art:
Photo by Fit4Spl showing the firewall grommet from the inside. He used a single positive lead with a chassis ground.
Must Be Art:
The official 3/4" hole saw for drilling NMO mounts. See how the shoulder prevents the saw from penetrating very far past the sheet metal.
Must Be Art:
Look out for these.
Must Be Art:
Closeup of the NMO mount.
Must Be Art:
Short Comet dual-band VHF/UHF antenna on the NMO mount in the middle of the roof.
Must Be Art:
Breedlove Mounts ball mount kit with Hustler spring and DX Engineering whip, mounted on the left rear quarter panel.
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The back of the ball head is half-heartedly bonded to a convenient ground point on the body, which is there to power the tail lights.
Must Be Art:
Here's what the output end of the AH-4 antenna tuner looks like. Check out that shoddy cheap ring terminal Icom provides.
Must Be Art:
The back of the ball head and the ribbed insulator end of the AH-4 tuner, before they were connected by a 4-inch jumper.
Must Be Art:
The AH-4 antenna tuner dangling in the rear cargo area. This awkward position gets it as close as possible to the ball mount at the base of the whip.
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A view of the cobbled-together gooseneck mounting system, with the control head removed. You can see the black flange mounted on top of the square galvanized reinforcing plate.
Must Be Art:
The IC-7100 control head (upper left) mounted on the shiny ball head, on top of the gooseneck. The coil cord is the microphone, and the other cord is the control cable.
Must Be Art:
The radio area with the driver's seat all the way forward. Easy access to everything. Here the power cable ends in a PowerPole, because I hadn't built the PowerPole to Icom jumper yet. From top to bottom: VHF/UHF antenna coax, 6m/HF antenna coax, tuner co
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This much of the radio sticks out when the seat is in my driving position.
Must Be Art:
With the floor mat tucked over the radio, the installation is all but invisible.