Where did you tap for power?Installed a Yaesu FTM-6000R in my Heritage Edition this past weekend. Transceiver in one of the compartments in the foam surrounding the spare tire, ProClip mounts for control head and mic holder, and a glass mount antenna. No holes drilled.
Thanks for the tip on routing the antenna cable. Using your advice I was able to run the cable for my CB radio into my 2023 Bronco Sport Heritage Edition.In the spirit of keeping this info on a single thread, I'm going to post what I did here but if it needs to be moved, I'm happy to do so.
Thanks to everyone who's posted already - it was really helpful when I started mine.
I was gifted a Midland MXT275 radio and I went with the 3dB Ghost Antenna because I figured it was better than the magnetic mount and would still let me go into parking garages. I got my GMRS license, but I'm coming from the old handheld walkies so this is quite an upgrade for me and I'm a newbie on this system. We pretty much use these radios when we're traveling on group camping trips, but I wanted this more or less permanently mounted in the car.
I opted to use a roll bar/mirror mount from Midland for my Ghost Antenna.
So, there is some rubber trim that goes along side the roof rail. I fed the cable into that channel and pushed it down inside. To get the trim to lie flat again where the cable comes out up towards the antenna, I did make a small slit in the trim. As I fed the antenna wiring in the channel towards the windshield, where the roof bends down to the windshield I found this small plastic tab that I saw no particular purpose for - perhaps as a spacer or to support the trim as it goes over the bend, although my trim was pretty tight already - but that tab was big enough to prevent me from pushing the wire down in the channel. I went back and forth on this, but finally I trimmed off the edge of that so I could push the antenna cable down in the channel. That let the trim lie flat again. It seems to be working okay - trim lies flat and is meeting the other side of the channel. Once I reached the windshield, I fed the antenna cable along the windshield edge to go into the engine bay.
From there, I fed the cable in towards the driver's door. I debated about going through the engine bay grommet behind the battery, but I couldn't clearly see how the antenna cable would come in by the brake pedal (I feel like one needs to be a contortionist to see under the dash in this vehicle - my only gripe about this car so far haha) so that made me a little nervous. Thus - the door route won.
NVSport mentioned on a firewall penetration thread a grommet on the driver's side door that could be used as an access point into the cabin. So I was able to pop that grommet out, and I used a long zip tie to come up from the driver's footwell up through the hole where that grommet is. I couldn't get a picture under the dash of that - I basically kind of carefully stuck my hand up along the inside until I felt an opening on the metal frame there. Here's a picture of the zip tie coming out of the hole (sorry, my car was not spotless when I did this).
From there, I basically cut a hole in the grommet and fed the antenna cable through so I could reinstall the grommet (first picture below is the wire in the grommet, second is what it looks like reinstalled). Taped the antenna cable to the zip tie with masking tape, and pulled the wiring through into the driver's footwell.
I sealed around the hole with some RTV silicone to keep water from entering the hole. I kept the sealant just on the grommet so if I ever need to pull that cable (or add anything) I can just get a new grommet from the parts counter and replace it.
I then fed the antenna cable behind the brake/gas pedals and behind the climate control module over to the passenger side - I secured the antenna cable with zip ties so it shouldn't interfere with anything - and then routed it behind and into the glove box which is where I plan to put my receiver. I haven't installed that yet because I am planning to use a fuse tap to power the radio (the fuse box is conveniently located on the passenger side footwell) and I want to solder the wires rather than rely on crimping. I have a cat5 extender and I'm going to feed that from the glove box to below the climate control panel and just use mounting tape to affix it there to plug the radio in. I'll add pictures of that when I finish that up (hopefully this week).
Hopefully this is helpful to someone like the other posts were helpful for me!
Just an observation; have you confirmed the rail or your mount is properly grounded? Otherwise you risk high SWR and may damage the radio unless the antenna is a half-wave and ground independentHere’s my GMRS for now - I need to mount the head unit somewhere, and maybe hardwire it to the fuse box
here's the mount:
