Ordered the head extension cable and a mounting bracket for my Icom 706MKII-G last week, and they showed up in the mail on Saturday, so I had a good time on saturday afternoon figuring out how to get the rig mounted in my new car.
The main issue was finding a good space on/near the dash for the head. Unfortunately, due to the large size of the 706 head, and restrictions on where I can place it due to not wanting to put it in front of any of the air bags, I eventually came to the conclusion that the dash wasn’t right right spot for it.
Thought about putting it up in the sunglasses holder, and the head fit there, but none of the cables connecting to it would. Plus how am I gonna get the cables up there anyway.
Eventually I found that it fit nicely with lots of room for cables and whatnot inside the center console/arm rest box. Then I can run the cable under the rear seats and under the floor of the trunk to where I’d mount the body of the radio.
Then came the issue of powering the radio. I thought about how I could run power to the rear of the car from the battery, and have it look nice (seeing as it’s a shiny new car). Short of paying a professional who knows how to get the thousand trim pieces off between the battery and the cargo area, there wasn’t a whole lot I was willing to do. Though, I remembered that there’s an accessory outlet in the cargo area. It wouldn’t be able to supply enough power for transmit, but if I used it to charge a couple of small Sealed Lead Acid UPS batteries, the batteries could provide the transmit current, and the accessory outlet to supply the receive current and recharge the batteries.
Anyway, it seems to be working great, so now I’m all set to be operating mobile in my new car!