I thought this posted successfully yesterday - obviously it didn't, so let's try again...

You lot are going to love this

There is a funny side to everything.

Seriously, there is.

The other day, I checked my stores, and found no solder flux paste or fine steel wool.

I haven't bought any for ages, and this, at the end of a long day, meant a quick visit to Amazon or similar to get it overnight. I went to Amazon, chose prime delivery, 'grabbed' the first two things that looked right, hit 'buy', and thought nothing more about it, until they arrived not twenty minute ago.

JEEEEEeeeeeyyyyaaaaaayzus on a bike, when the hell will I learn to read the quantities I'm buying?!

That's ONE POUND (450 grams) of steel wire wool (fine grade) and a shade over a pound of Soldering flux paste (475 grams)!

There is only one thing I can say to this (bar the comment that I'm likely not to ever need to order any of this stuff again in my next two lifetimes):

D'OH!

First and foremost, I'm VERY glad I had the foresight to invest in a full kit of these things a while back. They were utterly invaluable in saving me time and swear words today!


This is the where I decided to bring the cable out into the open air. It's between the legs of the spare wheel carrier, just alongside the window wash pipe exit. The antenna cable then drifts over the offside (right) leg of the spare wheel carrier, to the boot lip mount fitted to the hinge-side of the tailgate door, above the hinges.


This is the mounting, with the antenna fitted.



The nearside (left) storage bin, looking down. The tightly wrapped cable top left of the picture is the programming lead (it's a spare, I have two), there for convenience. The radio was deliberately mounted top-down, to allow me to easily plug in the programming cable in situ, rather than faffing around removing the radio every time I want to program it. Laptop PCs were invented to be portable after all, so when I want to add/change radio settings, out comes the laptop, plug it into the radio, and a short while later, with little hassle at all, Bob's yer uncle


The two cables from the radio to the front of the Disco actually DID go into the headlining trim (this is where the trim kit came into it's own), and out again at the bottom left (nearside) of the windscreen. It's secured there by a cable tie and a self-adhesive mounting.


Finally, the head unit, speaker, and other gubbins on the dash...

The head unit is fixed in place in it's mount by a pair of small 'L' brackets which are screwed in place. The external speaker is fixed in place by a pair of double-sided adhesive pads (I appear to have lost the U bracket for the damn thing, mutter mutter). In this photo, the cables haven't been tidied up, yet. I may change the mounting method before long; I'm not quite happy with it just yet; I'm considering a goose-neck suction mount attached to the windscreen, but I'm going to give the current setup a go, and see how it works. The mount to the right of the speaker is my phone mount.


Anyhow, after all the sagas and mishaps along the way, it's now done

Hope the above helps someone in the future

RogerStenning said:

First and foremost, I'm VERY glad I had the foresight to invest in a full kit of these things a while back. They were utterly invaluable in saving me time and swear words today!

This is the where I decided to bring the cable out into the open air. It's between the legs of the spare wheel carrier, just alongside the window wash pipe exit. The antenna cable then drifts over the offside (right) leg of the spare wheel carrier, to the boot lip mount fitted to the hinge-side of the tailgate door, above the hinges.

This is the mounting, with the antenna fitted.

The nearside (left) storage bin, looking down. The tightly wrapped cable top left of the picture is the programming lead (it's a spare, I have two), there for convenience. The radio was deliberately mounted top-down, to allow me to easily plug in the programming cable in situ, rather than faffing around removing the radio every time I want to program it. Laptop PCs were invented to be portable after all, so when I want to add/change radio settings, out comes the laptop, plug it into the radio, and a short while later, with little hassle at all, Bob's yer uncle

The two cables from the radio to the front of the Disco actually DID go into the headlining trim (this is where the trim kit came into it's own), and out again at the bottom left (nearside) of the windscreen. It's secured there by a cable tie and a self-adhesive mounting.

Finally, the head unit, speaker, and other gubbins on the dash...

The head unit is fixed in place in it's mount by a pair of small 'L' brackets which are screwed in place. The external speaker is fixed in place by a pair of double-sided adhesive pads (I appear to have lost the U bracket for the damn thing, mutter mutter). In this photo, the cables haven't been tidied up, yet. I may change the mounting method before long; I'm not quite happy with it just yet; I'm considering a goose-neck suction mount attached to the windscreen, but I'm going to give the current setup a go, and see how it works. The mount to the right of the speaker is my phone mount.

Anyhow, after all the sagas and mishaps along the way, it's now done

Hope the above helps someone in the future

Click to expand...

looking good mate , surprising how long some things take

but always worth it in the end

Would the speaker fit the other side of the binnacle (it between it and the A pillar?) - might be a bit more discreet there? Nice job though.

gstuart said:

looking good mate , surprising how long some things take

Click to expand...

Thanks, and no kidding! Still not happy with the VSWR. It's excellent on 2m (practically 1:1, the needles on the meter hardly move), but for everything else it's a bit higher, esp on 6m and 10m.

I'm pretty sure the higher than desired VSWR is down to the grounding of the cable. When things calm down over here a bit, and I get some time to do it, I'm going to replace the utter rubbish RG-58/U stuff, which has a truly miserly amount of really crap screen (took three attempts to get a PL-259 on the end of it due to the braid breaking all the time, ffs ), with some better coax. I already have the coax (some decent RG-58/U Coax made by Messi & Paoloni, sourced from ML&S) and a spare PL-259 or two lying around, all I have to do then is thread it through the body of the wagon (OVER the back door this time) and terminate it with connectors. The problem connector is going to be the one at the antenna mount; it's a right-angle crimp SO-239 job with a long neck up to the antenna, through the boot lip mounting, onto which it's bolted (Diamond K-405 mount. The mount is bloody marvellous, it's just the cable they used which is utter pants ).

gstuart said:

but always worth it in the end

Click to expand...

Oh, yes, without a doubt

private penguin said:

Would the speaker fit the other side of the binnacle (it between it and the A pillar?) - might be a bit more discreet there? Nice job though.

Click to expand...

It's a little wide for there, or that's where it would have gone Good thinking though, and thanks

I found by mounting the aerial so low down it interfered with the SWR but once the base coil was above the roof it was fine, might be worth a try

winchman said:

I found by mounting the aerial so low down it interfered with the SWR but once the base coil was above the roof it was fine, might be worth a try

Click to expand...

There isn't much slack cable to play with, but it's certainly worth a shot, thanks

RogerStenning said:

Thanks, and no kidding! Still not happy with the VSWR. It's excellent on 2m (practically 1:1, the needles on the meter hardly move), but for everything else it's a bit higher, esp on 6m and 10m.

I'm pretty sure the higher than desired VSWR is down to the grounding of the cable. When things calm down over here a bit, and I get some time to do it, I'm going to replace the utter rubbish RG-58/U stuff, which has a truly miserly amount of really crap screen (took three attempts to get a PL-259 on the end of it due to the braid breaking all the time, ffs ), with some better coax. I already have the coax (some decent RG-58/U Coax made by Messi & Paoloni, sourced from ML&S) and a spare PL-259 or two lying around, all I have to do then is thread it through the body of the wagon (OVER the back door this time) and terminate it with connectors. The problem connector is going to be the one at the antenna mount; it's a right-angle crimp SO-239 job with a long neck up to the antenna, through the boot lip mounting, onto which it's bolted (Diamond K-405 mount. The mount is bloody marvellous, it's just the cable they used which is utter pants ).



Oh, yes, without a doubt



It's a little wide for there, or that's where it would have gone Good thinking though, and thanks

Click to expand...

going to do mine at some stage

i've got a TTi 900 cb

found a place to hide the cb in the glovebox out of the way, only thing though i would have to get an extension lead for the mic

will be removing the headlining so thinking of putting an aerial in then , a pre drilled hole where the gps normally goes

or on the roof rack mounts

these are some i've seen

Yeah, there are a few places you can stick a radio in a disco, no matter what model you have. If you do go for that gps hole, make sure you seal it effectively, discos really don't like leaks!

RogerStenning said:

Yeah, there are a few places you can stick a radio in a disco, no matter what model you have. If you do go for that gps hole, make sure you seal it effectively, discos really don't like leaks!

Click to expand...

got some really good glazing silicone if i go the roof option , lol

seen some plates u can get, then sandwich some rubber in between

pic is of the plate

RogerStenning said:

There isn't much slack cable to play with, but it's certainly worth a shot, thanks

Click to expand...

I had this issue on two different vehicles, the local professional installer bloke told me to keep the base and spring etc in free space for the best results

Aerials can cause untold headscratching and tearing out of hair (for those who might still have some).
SWR or more correctly, Voltage Standing Wave Ratio is the ratio between the forward voltage on a transmission line and the reverse or return voltage "reflected" back off the end of the transmission line, but is often used to indicate how well a load , in this case an aerial is tuned. A ratio of 1:1 indicates that all the power transmitted into the load is absorbed and none is reflected back. In reality, if I ever saw a test result of 1:1 I would suspect an aerial fault, nothing is ever that good. 1.1:1 or 1.2:1 is probably the best you can expect in the real world.
There are essentially two components which constitute a tuned load or circuit, inductance and capacitance. Those who have any knowledge of radio should know "One over two pi, root LC"

The length of the radiating element generally changes the inductance more than the capacitance and therefore the tuning. However most commecially built aerials are designed to work against a flat groundplane and they are tuned with such a groundplane taken into account.
As soon as the user starts bending that groundplane upwards and hence parallel to the radiating element the optimum tuning on a flat groundplane starts to change and also the capacitive effects between the radiating element and the groundplane change quite dramatically further altering the tuned frequency possibly to a point outside the ability to tune out the error.
Not only will such bending of the groundplane create errors in the tuning, but will also alter the horizontal radiation pattern from the aerial. On the flat test groundplane the horizontal radiation pattern from a vertical radiating element should be near enough circular, with a bent groundplane, well your guess is as good as mine.

Easy fix, you can even out the antenna pattern by driving around in circles

PMSL The Smith Chart of that would be something to behold

RogerStenning said:

PMSL The Smith Chart of that would be something to behold

Click to expand...

Yeah, draw the bloody thing yourself, I just can't be bovered!

brian47 said:

Yeah, draw the bloody thing yourself, I just can't be bovered!

Click to expand...