The 'Ash-Tray' CB

I decided I would fit a CB, mostly after the BigJimny event and did a bit of listening round here first, there isn't much on and what there is mostly 'toilet' language, but since the CB was only £45 I thought what the heck.

I bought a PNI 6500 CB, it is so small it fits in place of the ash-tray  
 
 

To hold it place, I made a new ash-tray holder out of aluminium and bolted the CB cradle to it.
 

I will power it from the Cig socket, but hard wire it round the back as I use the socket for my DashCam.

For the antenna, I wanted it on the back and went for a 'Spring Stinger' colour coded to the Jimny.
 

I made an antenna bracket from some M8 Stainless threaded rod with a M8 Stainless tube, then drilled the spare wheel holder.
 

A few Stainless nuts and washers complete the bracket.
 

The fit is quite snug between the spare wheel and rear wiper blade, but it all goes in.

I have the coax to route, I will drill the rear door, pass it through and next to the door wiring, then through the cab to the dash.  I will have to cut the plug off to do it and solder a new one on.

Robin

 

That's so neat, nice installation.
Its so good I am tempted to do the same as the ash tray is never used. The tech just looks better even though in my case It's highly likely it's won't get used as well 
 

That's a tidy little use of space.  For my install, I managed to feed the RF cable through the same place as the rear door wiring loom.  I just cut a slit in the rubber to aid passing through and didn't need to drill anything.  Bit of WD40 always helps sliding through.  Then once it was through, I just put a bit of electrical tape round the rubber to seal it up again.

Same CB I bought. read some tests on it, should be good value for money. although it seems I am the only one in Norway with a CB
Have you seen the 8 watt mod? (google it , most likely not allowed in the UK either)

I fit mine below the ashtray.
Not so easy too see the display there, so better to put it higher.

Remember to put an extra ground wire for your door, and to the antenna base. Could be there is weak ground there on the mount.

Thanks guys.

I have seen the 8w mod and channels mod, but haven’t done either yet, I will see how it goes.

I did check the match using a small analyser (I have a ham license and HF, VHF, UHF radios so accumulated a fair bit of test kit) and it was quite good, also the earth is good, but I did add an earth strap just in case, thanks for the tip.

I wanted the coax hidden so did drill the rear door near to the spare wheel mount.  Note the tape over the car plugs.  PL-259 plugs don’t seal so fill up with water after a period of time.
 

Then sealed it up with some rubber tape.  The cables came through quite easy.
 

I then fed the coax next to the door wiring and through the rubber cable duct.
 
 

The coax was then passed through the side panel, then under the seat and carpet next to the drive tunnel, under the hand brake cover and along the side of the gear stick cover to the radio.
 

Routing the coax this way means it is hidden from view so won’t become caught or damaged.  It did involve removing a few panels, but these seem to come off I need a fairly regular basis on my Jimny.

Then for a quick test, 40 channels but no one on. Still I have an old portable CB and that proved the PNI was working as well as a small spectrum analyser which showed the antenna was radiating quite nicely.  Perhaps I should drive to the coast and see if I can reach Norway?

Robin

I like the mount you made, I went and bought a large welded piece of metal to fit mine (before I knew how to weld).  Another thing that I did was wrap my RF cable round the spare wheel mount, creating an 'ugly balun' in an effort to reduce RF interference. It's not the perfect diameter, but it's an effort.  I didn't drill my door as I like to keep things as original as possible, instead I unbolted one of the spare wheel carrier bolts and threaded the RF cable through and wrapped self amalgating tape round the cable sealing the hole up.  I've changed my wheel carrier now and the  balun' is gone. If I had enough cable, I would have made a proper one inside the rear quarter panel. The CB lives though.  Not much action on it in Aberdeenshire either unfortunately, but I always have it on channel 19 or scanning just in case.

Thanks Mike,

The M8 threaded rod came from Toolstation, the tube we had at work.

I thought about using one of the wheel carrier bolts, but decided that I would prefer to stick with the 5 just in case it starts rattling.

The hole is quite small so if I ever remove the antenna it will seal up easily and is hidden by the spare wheel.

I made a balanced/un-balanced balun for my ham HF set, but that is a dipole going in to coax and runs 100w so is to stop rf coming back down the coax. I don’t suppose I will need one on CB at 4w.

All good fun and I can lend my portable set to my pal when out on the hills.

Robin

Looks great, and I think it will provide good signals as well according to tests I seen done on similar vehicles. My garage is to low for me to put it there sadly. and trees and stuff seems to be ok where I put it, in the spare wiper hole below the windsheild.
I wouldn't worry about the hole at all.

Yes, lets crank it up to 8 watts and I can drive to the coast as well

Or better yet I have access to a ham radio room with lotsa equipment that is more capable. Just have to get licensed or get a friend to use it

I get faint signals on the evenings from italy(?) lots of yelling. especially when I drive out to the coast at nights. In between the mountains where I live, there is not much range.

We would stand more of a chance on HF. My multi-band dipole will tune up on 40m, 20m, 17m & 15m. I also have a long wire for 80m, but have a lot of noise there.

I am mostly active on FT8 at the moment, but can do SSB. My callsign is G8UZM. I am not sure which band or when conditions would be good to get across to Norway, possibly 40m?

30 years ago I used to do a lot on VHF/UHF and could get in to Norway on both bands when the conditions were right, but all of the gear is in the loft and hasn't been used for some time.

Robin

Yep, probably doesnt need a balun, but it is good fun messing about with radio.  I sometimes do 10m stuff on the freebands, interesting hearing the skip from different places in the summer time. Shame there's next to no CB activity these days.

I guess the drilling method also allows you to use a better grade cable, I just used rg58 with foam dielectric. Good enough for a CB install.

Loving the idea on this! - looks neat at the back. And as others have said its a good use of space - my little ashtray holder doubles as a mobile phone holder but jumps out if I go over a bump. Cool.