Mobile Operation - 6600M in-a-car?

KF6JS · January 2022

I see a lot of remote operation using IOS and cell phones from a vehicle. Cool!....I need to try that.

What I need is to go mobile WITH the 6600M so it can hear noise around town. You see, I get a lot of noise on 40M and found it's NOT in my house. Now I need to cruise around town....

I'm thinking a profile with listen-only mode and xmt power set to 0 or 10 watts will be safe (low DC power draw).

Question is: Can I run the 6600M directly on the vehicle battery? Anyone try this? I have a small battery that will power the radio and will use that if necessary....but what about vehicle power?...will that work or is there too much noise on that DC buss?

Thanks to All.....KF6JS - Tony

KD0RC · January 2022

Hi Tony, A vehicle battery should work fine. The biggest danger with an SDR mobile is that it has a visual interface. Watching the front panel or a laptop while driving is ridiculously dangerous. One person driving while another operates the radio would be ideal.

You would want a small loop antenna that you can use to null the noise and get a vector. Move perpendicular to that vector and get another vector. That should get you in the neighborhood.

Transmit power is not a factor as long as you don't transmit. In this application, just leave the mic and key at home.

KF6JS · January 2022

Len - good point about mobile and the display.....Thanks! Although I didn't say it, another Ham was planning to assist. I have a crew-cab pickup to give us space in the cab. I'm now thinking of mounting the antenna - probably to the hitch since it's a temp install.

Stan VA7NF · January 2022

Done this many times, taking 13V directly from the battery. One interesting time is on a public service assist was my 6700 + 70W 2M amp + 16' 2M vertical (used in a fixed location). Note the flex uses a class A power amp biased for 100W; 10W out draws more power than the normal 10A auxiliary power sockets will deliver. Have used the auxiliary outlet when checking out noise while searching for a new QTH.

In my case the biggest problem was car generated EMI (A hybrid with almost 100 built in power converters, several multi-KW).

Doing the "find the noise" searches, one very unexpected source was those in-road vehicle sensors, those ones that trigger traffic lights. Seems they use very noisy RF sensing circuits. BTW I use a National Radio handheld HF receive loop pushed out the sun roof (I stop then test). Get many strange looks from pedestrians.

Please let us know how a 2 person search works out. It could be very effective to drive and have another person monitoring the noise level of specific noise signals - An excellent use of the panadapter display.

kenmohler · April 2022

I agree about the danger of operating a visual interface device while driving. Driving should get ALL your attention. Watch a few YouTube dash camera posts.

Mobile Operation - 6600M in-a-car?

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