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Lucid Ham Radio Installations and Owners

Hi all - just getting my feet wet here but hoping to pick up our brand new Gravity Touring this week.

I'm also a ham (and RACES officer) so wanted to see what the possibilities are. Since we leased the Gravity, anything I do has to be reversible and removable ... makes me think the window mount might be the way to go.

I should also mention that the Gravity will be my wife's primary vehicle so I'd really only want to install my radio when we're road tripping or similar situation ... The more 'normal' day to day radio ops are from my R1S.

But anyway - I saw the thread, thought "hey, this will be awesome as my first post at Lucidowners!" so here I am saying hello.

Can I say how ridiculously excited we are to get the Gravity? It's going to replace my wife's Model X -- was a great ride, but its time has come. 101k excellent miles - traveled all over the US in it ... Loved it, but ready for the next.

73s all -- Dennis // N2TCF
 
Dennis: I have an 2025 AIR PURE and use a suction cup mount (for a 144/432 antenna) on the rear trunk deck. The wiring is run under the trunk rubber lip. 12 V comes from a new heavy cable run from the lighter plug in the trunk. All are removable easily. Your Gravity is different, but similar methods may work.

(It looks like you are from NJ. I used to live in Colts Neck NJ and worked at Bells Labs Holmdel. Note the 6 meter Halo antenna picture at the left from around 1962.)

Steve
 
Hi Dennis,

Are you excited or what? :)

Welcome to the thread. I'm driving a 25 AT and I was grappling with how to install a radio. Thru-glass and mag mounts are out. (The glass tint is an embedded metal film and everything is aluminum.) But I solved my predicament and the solution works great. Rather than rehash it, take a look at my posted photos and info on page 3 of this thread. BTW, the extension cable is just CAT5 ethernet cable so don't buy Yaesu's overpriced cable.

DoctorZ

Thread 'Lucid Ham Radio Installations and Owners'

Eventually it appears as if we're all going to have to buy an EV. With that said, I'm not interested in anything other than a Lucid! However, as a Storm Chaser/SkyWarn Certified Severe Weather Spotter, and a licensed Ham Radio Operator, I need to know if my equipment will work in the vehicle? I've heard all the talk about RF interference EV motors put out. I assume this problem will have to be resolved eventually as sooner or later Police cars will be EV and they have to have two-way radio communications in them. So is anyone out there a Ham Radio Operator and successfully made it...
  • Like

73 es GL..... Frank / WA3NHK
 
Steve181 said:
Dennis: I have an 2025 AIR PURE and use a suction cup mount (for a 144/432 antenna) on the rear trunk deck. The wiring is run under the trunk rubber lip. 12 V comes from a new heavy cable run from the lighter plug in the trunk. All are removable easily. Your Gravity is different, but similar methods may work.

(It looks like you are from NJ. I used to live in Colts Neck NJ and worked at Bells Labs Holmdel. Note the 6 meter Halo antenna picture at the left from around 1962.)

Steve
Click to expand...
Hey! That isn't an Air!
 
fpmacko said:
Hey! That isn't an Air!
Click to expand...
56 Merc, with keys that worked. Picture of Lucid front-end attached. Transmitter is in compartment behind large screen
 

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Steve181 said:
56 Merc, with keys that worked. Picture of Lucid front-end attached. Transmitter is in compartment behind large screen
Click to expand...
Looks nice. If you're curious, have a look at my installation on page 3 of this thread.

"keys that worked".....(long sigh).....Those were the days.....(another long sigh)
 
Nice Pix. I once had a 63 Thunderbird with a 6m modified Link police vacuum tube transmitter, with a dynamotor, under the hood. Those were the days!
 
Steve181 said:
Dennis: I have an 2025 AIR PURE and use a suction cup mount (for a 144/432 antenna) on the rear trunk deck. The wiring is run under the trunk rubber lip. 12 V comes from a new heavy cable run from the lighter plug in the trunk. All are removable easily. Your Gravity is different, but similar methods may work.

(It looks like you are from NJ. I used to live in Colts Neck NJ and worked at Bells Labs Holmdel. Note the 6 meter Halo antenna picture at the left from around 1962.)

Steve
Click to expand...

fpmacko said:
Hi Dennis,

Are you excited or what? :)

Welcome to the thread. I'm driving a 25 AT and I was grappling with how to install a radio. Thru-glass and mag mounts are out. (The glass tint is an embedded metal film and everything is aluminum.) But I solved my predicament and the solution works great. Rather than rehash it, take a look at my posted photos and info on page 3 of this thread. BTW, the extension cable is just CAT5 ethernet cable so don't buy Yaesu's overpriced cable.

DoctorZ

Thread 'Lucid Ham Radio Installations and Owners'

Eventually it appears as if we're all going to have to buy an EV. With that said, I'm not interested in anything other than a Lucid! However, as a Storm Chaser/SkyWarn Certified Severe Weather Spotter, and a licensed Ham Radio Operator, I need to know if my equipment will work in the vehicle? I've heard all the talk about RF interference EV motors put out. I assume this problem will have to be resolved eventually as sooner or later Police cars will be EV and they have to have two-way radio communications in them. So is anyone out there a Ham Radio Operator and successfully made it...
  • Like

73 es GL..... Frank / WA3NHK
Click to expand...

Thank you both! Super excited for pickup tomorrow. This'll actually be my wife's vehicle - it replaces her Model X (the steering rack failed, and that was my last straw. Dang thing has been a plethora of failures.)

I daily drive an R1S and I've been having a bear of a time finding the right way to get my antenna mounted. These all-glass roofs are NOT my friend!

So what I have for the R1S is a T-slot antenna mount that goes into one of the roof crossbars, and a Comet GI250NMO antenna which supposedly doesn't need a ground plane. I'm still getting a lot of background static though, so I have to figure out if it's the R1S that's noisy, a lousy antenna, or my radio ... could be any one of them. And since both the R1S and Lucid will be a lease, I don't want to do anything permanent, which kinda pushed me into using a standard shack 120V power supply. That could be inducing some noise too (and seems ridiculously dumb - from a DC battery through the vehicle's DC-AC inverter, then AC-DC in the power supply ...). I didn't use the 12V socket since I've been playing with my ICOM IC-7100 in here, and that's a 100-watter. Didn't want to overdraw the 12V socket, but tempted to give it a try. @fpmacko - what are you using for power to your Yaesu? If I can get this clean I'll probably get a different radio than the 7100; it's a fantastic radio but a bit overkill and I hate moving it between my basement shack and the car. Looking for something with a detachable head (your Yaesu may be perfect, actually ... - as you said, just using a shielded cat5 cable makes this super clean.)

So anyway - where I'm going is that I want to have an easy, yet removable, way to run my rig in the Gravity. Maybe I'll get the roof crossbars and just be portable between the R1S and Gravity. True first world problems!
 
Hi dmurphynj,

First, I inserted my photos before I started entering this text. Important safety note ----- Don't do that. If you do you won't be given a message entry field.

I installed my FTM-500 in the right side cubby in my trunk. It fit perfect and there's a 12v plug right there. I ran ethernet to the remote head mounted in a cup holder mount. Piece of cake. Take special note of my antenna installation. The model number is on page 3 of this thread. This was the only way I could mount an antenna on an aluminum car with glass tinted with an embedded metal film. It works great. It glues onto the glass and is solid. If you need to remove it you just get some fishing line and drag it down along side the glue strip.

73.....Frank / WA3NHK
 
Oooohhhh. Didn't see that. I dunno. A fellow ham gave me a wooden full of tubes and stuff. It's been bouncing around my trunk for weeks because I've been too lazy to bring it in. I'm headed to the garage so I'll check and report back.
 
it calls itself a tube tester, but if it’s a real tube tester then I’m Emperor of Patagonia. Maybe it just heats filaments with a resistor directly in series with the AC line. I wonder if it can test power pentodes?
 

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I suspect that it just tests filamaents. EL-34's??

BTW - Your rig location is much smarter than mine. I have power cable loss rear to front, and RF loss front to rear. I guess that I did not have a control and speaker extender handy at the time.
Steve
 
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