You guys with a CB radio, where ya tapping electrically?

If you have a CB (or other communication type) radio installed in your FGT where did you tap into the electrical circuits so it turns on and off with the key?

 

Interested also, my guess is fuse tap on ACC circuit under the kick panel

 

Radio lume. Tap into the aftermarket harness (crutchfield harness) Red for ignition power, yellow for constant. Or you can to an add a fuse which is what I did when I added electric windows and locks. Just be carefull with the add a fuse that you orient it accordingly so as not to fry everything upstream.

 

I ran my positive lead directly from the battery and through the firewall. Supposedly less interference but my antenna has never been tuned as I lost interest due to the lack of genuine communication on there. The PA feature is fun though. Folks get a kick out of that.

If I did it differently, I'd run the pos lead into the accessories fuse and get a bracket in between my bed and cap for the antenna. I don't typically use the CB when the truck's off anyways and there's probably some increased battery drain.

 

Oh! I forgot I documented my install.

Check it out here: https://www.tundras.com/threads/adv...the-cab-cb-radio-install.120401/#post-3089253

 

I have a 60 watt ham transceiver in the cab and ran a separate fused lead straight from the battery. Just pushed a #12 fused wire through the firewall alongside the Toyota's wiring, it's easy access through, always hot, less voltage drop, and less RFI. My radio has an option to shut off after a specified time when no buttons are pushed, so I set it to 30 mins and it will turn itself off if I forget. If you run a bigger wire through than you need, you will have spare capacity, always better to have more than you need. If you want a hot when on, the 12 volt ACC sockets will do that, install a 12 volt cigar plug on the power cord. I've done that too, but I like the radio to have power without the key having to be on ACC or RUN position.

 

Any recomend place to help me program my fang uv5r? And some fang 888's? I downloaded chirp, but would donate for someone experienced to assist. Looking to add weather , and verify they are on legal channels.

 

If you're licensed, find a local ham club in your area and someone there would be glad to help I'm sure, if that doesn't work, youtube is full of helpful videos to program Baofeng radios. Good luck.

 

Thanks. No , i have just begun studying and reading up on compliace to make sure im abiding by all fcc rules. I live on the water ( chesapeake) and was curious if you could program the weather repeater and put it on listen only mode ( i forget acronym for no transmit mode). Anyone else with uv5r that have upgraded antenna. I also have two motorolla's. I think a D200 and ill have to look at the other one but have been told its good unit. But it has 700-800 antemma so I have not played with it. Ill check out youtube. Thanks

 

I only have one Baofeng, an UV3R, but it will receive and transmit almost any frequency in the VHF or UHF spectrum. I've never tried, but I am almost sure it will receive the NOAA weather forecasts and also TX and RX the marine channels for harbor patrol etc. Yeah, if you don't find in person help, check out YouTube and also Google Baofeng programming, there is a huge amount of info available. They are confounding little radios, but the price is right and they do pretty good job considering they don't require a credit check to buy.

 

You know, if all you want is NOAA Weather you could get a cheap handheld VHF Marine Radio...

 

Watching this thread for ideas. Currently, I have my CB plugged into one of the 12v power sockets (cig lighter thingy). I know that's not ideal. I'd like to do something better, but with the lack of CB traffic, I'm not sure its worth it. I also haven't tuned my antenna yet. The main traffic we get around here is some idiot with a base station that thinks channel 19 is his own personal channel (I'm talking to you, Rocketman in Memphis TN).

 

Nothing wrong with plugging into a 12v socket. Back in the day it was not uncommon to see CB's plugged into the cig lighter. Here's a 1979 Midland I picked up at a yard sale. It still has the cig lighter plug attached.

 

Here I was thinking thats what I bought lol. I know the 888's are VHF.