Flex Radio Mobile

Lawrence Kellar KB5ZZB

With the soon to be released Maestro, is anybody thinking of running a flex 6000 series in the mobile. I am talking about a traditional mobile set up and not remote.

Bob Hinkle

Well, if I had a '62 Caddy with a really BIG dashboard......

George KF2T

More as a mental exercise only. Maestro is a bit big for mounting in a car, and I'm not sure the many thousands of dollars worth of gear provide a real advantage for casual mobile use. Maybe in an RV, or V/UHF contest rover, though.

Jim Gilliam

I have been dreaming about transferring my iPhone screen to the GPS screen of my car and mobiling that way. Interfacing the audio through Bluetooth. I do that now with the audio and it's a kick driving around the state listening to the ham bands.

KF4HR

I currently use an ICOM IC-7000 along with a SGC-231 Auto-tuner in my RV (Fleetwood Discovery).  When my Maestro shows up I may take my 6700 along on a trip and compare the two rigs in a mobile environment.  If things work out in favor of the Flex I might purchase a 2nd one to mount permanently in our RV.   

Dan -- KC4GO

Going to Winter Field day  in my RoadTrek (Small RV) this weekend) Using 6500, Hustler Mobile & Long Wire when Fixed with and SGC tuner to make it work. WiFi router and a Dell XPS-13 to run it all.
Good chance to check noise blanker against the TS-480 that's been my mobile rig for about 10 years.

Dan-- KC4GO

Jim Gilliam

Please keep us abreast of the noise handling capabilities of the Flex. The demonstrations earlier when it came out where mind boggling.

Jim, K6QE

Ken - NM9P

I have thought about trying mobile with my 6500 in my 99 Roadtrek 190 Popular by using the K6TU and a cheap wireless router. Perhaps even with a laptop when not in motion. But is is going to be hard to run mobile with a rig that is worth almost as much as my RV!

rfoust

I was thinking maestro and a 6300 would be great in a boat.  If I had a boat, that is...

Jim Gilliam

I am able to use Teamviewer with my iPhone using Verizon wireless and get the whole enchilada on my iPhone in the car. However wireless data is not free!

Jim, K6QE

Dan -- KC4GO

I'll setup on 7.191 prior to my drive and try working the RV Service Net from 07:00 to 09:00 I have been working those guys for about 10 years so kind of know (propagation aside) how it should go.
@ Ken my RT is a 2005 Popular and I'm looking for the award for working from all states (40 meters)  We did Alaska and Hawaii before not from the RT. We have been to all 48 most twice.

Dan -- KC4GO

Jim Gilliam

The iPad or some other similar device might be better suited if you have mobile phone wireless capabilities and have deep pockets.

Michael Coslo

I've thought a little bit about it, and in the end, just went with my TS-480. As much as I love my Flex, I fear all that screen activity would just distract me. Seems like zipping around the spectrum and looking at stuff has become a new part of my hobby.

DH2ID

Well, when my F3k was made redundant for a short time by my F6k5,
I tried it in my car, although only for show on a fieldday, and not strictly mobile, because my XYL was driving slowly on a country road and I had to do the talking and balancing both the F3K and Toughbook CF-52 on my lap.
It worked, sort of, but I woudn't want this setup for a mobile rig - much too clumsy to work, and I don't think the electronics will keep up to all that vibration and moisture/heat.
I'll keep to my FT-857D...

Walt - KZ1F

With you guys talking about mobile experiences harkens me back to a hockey game I went to with my, then, girlfriend and her dad. I had a CB radio in the car. The game was at the Providence civic center. During the game she broke up with me and upon returning to the car the largest piece of the driver side window was no bigger than a penny and the window pieces lay in the driver seat. The radio was gone and the under side of the dash was twisted metal. Are you guys really sure you want $1100 +/- worth of radio gear sitting in your front seat or attached to the dash?

Ken - NM9P

IF I ever mobile it in my Roadtrek Class 'B' RV, it will be mounted out of sight under the bed cabinet with a wireless access port in order to control it from my iPad or laptop.  The antenna lead will only be about 6 feet!  Power will come from the House battery.  

But this is a pipe-dream.  Right now my IC706MK2G works fine in the mobile, although I need to do some more antenna work.  The antenna mount for my Hustler needs replaced, the aluminum strap is cracked.

This may become a project a few years from now as I prepare my retirement vehicle.  I am looking at the possibility of a used Thor Vegas - 25 ft. class 'A.'  They might be affordable on the used market by then!  Perfect for three of us with about 10 MPG.  Not bad for a Class 'A,'

Ken - NM9P

W7NGA

1970's ... WA6LRA (me) goes mobile for the first time. In the throes of a heartbreak I took my life-savings and bought a Swan Cygnet 270B and mounted it in my Volkswagen Van replete with tie-dyed curtains and other accoutrements. Cool ... till we all headed to San Francisco to Winterland to watch the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage. It was my birthday and my new girlfriend had made me a cake to eat after the concert. Came back early in the morning, pretty sure I did drink the kool-aid that was passed around, only to find that someone had broken into my van, ripped out the 270B, and stepped on my birthday cake in their retreat.

I barely remember, (if you remember the 60's you weren't there) all of us taking the cake with a shoe print smashed into the frosting down to the police department hoping they could use the clue to find the scoundrels (surely unlicensed). Seems odd looking back now, but that kool-aid must have been really, really good!

Haven't worked mobile since ...

W7NGA  dan
San Juan Island, Wa.

Walt - KZ1F

OMG, that's awesome Dan! Not the theft part but the tie dyed, kool aid and cake part. So, about the cake...

I haven't worked mobile since my experience either. What became of the girl?

Michael Coslo

Where do you guys live? Somalia? 

My first Mobile Ham Radio outside of 2 meters was an IC-745. That was maybe 8 years ago. Now the TS-480 and a Bugcatcher fill the bill. Pretty hard to hide that. The only noteworthy thing about my setup beyond  the antenna dwarfing the little Jeep is that it gets great attention from law enforcement and Forest service police.

And not bad attention either, most are really interested in the thing, and I've even had some guys operate it. Some of my favorite Mountain operation positions get repeat visits. There's at least one forest service officer who's a Ham now after sitting in with me during a QSO Party. Got really hooked, and I hope his wife forgives me.

Rick Hadley - W0FG

In the mid 80's I was attending summer graduate school at UW Madison. I had a Swan MX-100 mounted under the dash of my VW Rabbit; big HF antenna on the bumper and a 2m antenna on the cowl. The 3rd day I was there I walked out to the parking lot to find the driver's window broken out, the Swan gone, along with the 100w 2m amp that was under the front seat, and most annoyingly, my prescription B&L sunglasses. Haven't done serious HF mobile since, but I now have a new Icom 7100 that's awaiting installation in my Jeep Wrangler.

Walt - KZ1F

Rick, my brother Bill went to UW Madison (undergraduate) about the same time. Small world, eh?

Walt - KZ1F

Is there anybody on this forum under the age of,say, 50?

Lawrence Kellar KB5ZZB

I'm currently running 2 vehicles with Kenwood TS-480s a 4 by sc2879 amplifier and a HI-Q antennas. I liken a FLEX Radio to The analogy " A blind man finally being able to see ". Going from one conversation to the next would be easier. And I am just a little under 50....

KY6LA_Howard

My first mobile was a homebrew 40M AM/SSB rig I built into a side pannier of my motorcycle in UK in 1965. Worked Motorcycle MOBILE riding from London to my new job in Mysore India. Antenna was a huge whip that slowed down the bike. Only issue was crossing Syrian Border into Jordan when the Syrian Military got it into their heads that I must be a Jordanian spy so they ripped the bike apart looking for spy stuff. Lots of great stories from that ride. But OT so another time and place. My second mobile was a 49MHz GE Highway patrol tube radio converted to 6M which used a dynamotor which took up the entire trunk of my Triumph TR4. The car lights would dim when hit PTT. Drove that one from Montreal to Alaska and back pulling a tent trailer.in 1967 on one of my many Honeymoons. Yes. I am way over 50.

DH2ID

Robbie, I have been sailing since I was a kid, my last boat was the
37ft Colin archer steel ketch "Skua".
A Flex-6300 might be good for sailing on a pond, but go to Lake Michigan
or - here in Germany Lake Constance - and you'll have moisture, smoke,
****, salmon, grease, and a lot more coating your beautiful -
and expensive - radio. To cap that, go sailing on the big blue
ocean, as I did and do, and you'll love an easy to use, tough, salt water
resistant radio, as my old FT-890AT, then FT-897 and now TS-480.

My FT-897 has been given a nice little salt water/oil/fish shower of
harbour water, when one of my sailing comrades decided to wash the boat down after a crossing from Scotland to Norway,and forgot to close the big
hatch above the upper saloon table and the radio equipment.

I took the radio apart, which is surprisingly easy to do, washed everything down with distillled water and dried it with a hairdryer. The FT-897 still
works, I only had to replace the speaker, which sounded quite interestingly,
because of all the rust... Now let me see you doing that to a 6k3...

Alex DH2ID

1. SY Skua, 37ft Colin Archer ketch, 120 sq meters sail:

2. Skua radio station for PACTOR, SSB,CW
   (FT-897, SCS PTC-IIe, MFJ tuner) used in harbour only:

3. Ham radio to the left, maritime radio to the right
    (the big hatch above the radio station ;-))

Walt - KZ1F

Howard, you win the prize my friend. Well, working hypothesis.

K1FR

Alex:  Great looking vessel.  Below is my mobile platform -'Pleiades' - on mooring in Annapolis for a long weekend.  Along with shot of nav table, er,  ham shack!  Rig is an ICOM 706.   Luckily have not had the thefts mentioned by others or the fun wash down.  Only ingress was lightning which hit the backstay antenna and took out lots of stuff that lives on trons!  Put some new holes in bottom too.  Other than that, HF mobile on a boat is wonderful.  Especially on off shore passages when it is cheap and easy to stay in touch with home!

73, Tom
K1FR

KY6LA_Howard

For being Ancient?

Ken - NM9P

I remember reading articles about hams building simple AM transmitters and using receive converters for their AM radios to go mobile back in the 50 & 60s before transceivers became popular.  I always wanted to try that.  I built a couple of shortwave receive converters for my radio back in the 80s and listened to Voice of America, Radio Moscow, & Deutschewella (sp?)  running down the road.  Pretty cool.  Use a simple crystal oscillator and a dual gate mosfet.   Also made one for aircraft band that let me listen to the tower at DFW airport when I was in grad school at SMU.  

Walt - KZ1F

I wouldn't call it ancient, but you're warm.

Jim Gilliam

Gonset made a converter that would mount under the steering column for mobile ham receivers. Just about everyone used one except for the rich who used mobile receivers. The converter would run between the mobile antenna and the antenna input of the car receiver. It also had a switch to switch between the broadcast antenna and the mobile antenna.