My immediate interest in Ham Radio is in mobile operation, so I’ve gone for a first investment as something to install in the car. I spend enough time in there to make it worth while, and it lets me do something interesting with otherwise “dead” time travelling to and from work.
I went for a Yaesu FT-8900 radio hooked up to a Maldol HMC-4 Antenna mounted on a rail mount. The HMC-4 only relies on the ground plane of the car for operation on 10 metres, which seems to be the least active band around here, so the rail mounting is a reasonable compromise. I’ve sited it within reach of the driver’s door, so I can tilt the antenna down without leaving the driver’s seat if I’m going under some kind of height restriction.
The decision about what to have for HF equipment is rather more complex, and will be the subject of a further post.
Receive performance on 2m and 6m is pretty good. There’s not much activity on 10m FM. But I’m a bit concerned about the way that 70cm reception has fallen off since I first put the rig in the car – I wonder if I’ve damaged the coax somewhere or some other problem.
Because I don’t have a callsign yet, I can’t do much to test the installation. Reports to follow!