Kenwood TMD-700

Dual Band Amateur Radio - $700

http://www.kenwood.net

Installing this radio was a two stage process. Starting with the base unit, power was added via one of the power distribution breakers. The audio, mic, and head unit extension cables (a separately purchased Kenwood kit) were run to the center console and routed appropriately. A serial cable was attached, and for now, lives inside the body panel near to the radio. The base unit itself lives just under and between the drink holder and power distribution panel, bolted to the inside face of the interior side panel.

The antennae was mounted to the front of the ARB rack via a custom made bracket bolted to the rack, providing a good ground contact with the rack, mount, and antennae. Since the rack is sitting on top of the plastic coated Thule cross rails, the radio relies on a solid ground to the rack for good antennae signal radiation. The finish on the ARB rack is fairly tough, but with enough scrapping/grinding bare metal will eventually show up. A 5 meter long antennae cable was used (a standard fully assembled length), which is just long enough to get to the base unit inside. The cable is zip tied to the underneath groove of the OEM rack runners and stays well out of the way. The cable then runs out the back of the rack and into the rear driver's side plastic vent cover where it goes into the vehicle via a SeaFit Electric waterproof coax cable marine deck fitting. Removal of the cover is required and can be done in an obvious manner. The cover itself has one metal snap plug at the lower rear and 4 tabs that slide into the outer side of the body panel. Be careful not to break the metal snap plug as a replacement cover costs $70. Don't ask.

With the cover removed, the upper oval inset on the body panel is where the antennae cable through hole was drilled and the small coax cable deck fitting bolted to prevent water leaks. There is room in this body panel location for a second, larger, waterproof deck fitting, below the first, that will be used to deliver power to the rack mounted lights. Remember that the ARB rack is not grounded, so a large ground wire will need to be run, probably behind the passenger side rear vent cover.

 

Since the antennae cable needs to be run through the coax cable deck fitting, the end of the cable needs to either have no fitting, or a fitting that can be disassembled down to the tip. After mounting the coax cable deck fitting, the cable is run through the fitting and down to the radio base unit. The 5 meter cable length will be just enough length to run from the antennae to the base unit with very little to spare.

That does it for the base unit, antennae mounting, and cable run. The head unit is another matter. Making the head fit into the style of the front console takes some work. The design decision was made to keep the front center console intact, looking as clean and integrated as possible. The TM-D700 head unit is placed in the location of the 12V OEM accessory power cover.

This addition requires carving out the cover to fit the shape of the head unit as well as making a metal bracket wing to attach the radio to the modified accessory power cover door. The radio head will snap onto the metal bracket and the bracket will bolt onto the power cover to provide an integrated solution. Start with a cardboard cutout to get a rough shape for the accessory cover cutout, and do the same to create a wing shaped bracket to hold the radio to the cover plate.

After some creative plastic carving, metal cutting and bending, the entire assembly was created. 1/16 inch aluminum plate was used for the rear head support bracket due to its workability. 1/8 inch aluminum plate was added to increase rigidity to the backing wing structure. One tricky part was that the cover door sits naturally closed at a downward angle of view. To make the radio faceplate visible, it needed to sit at almost a 30 degree angle to the plane of the power cover it is attached to. A bumper was added behind the power cover so that it would sit vertical when closed, allowing for a slight upward view of the radio faceplate.

email:SubRider

10/16/01