Our Projects

Below are some of your projects that we have tried and succeeded...

One morning in the early 2000's I woke up to a constant clicking. I looked over at my Kenwood TS2000 and it was going on and off as we were have power outages. I mentioned this to one of my truck driving friends, and Ham operator KW4FM. He emailed me a schematic of a simple circuit. I built it and have never had another problem with power. It has a very large capacitor and a contact switch. The contact switch is powered by 110v AC. Also connected to the switch is 12vdc coming from the bench power supply on one side and a 12v battery on the other side. When ac power is lost the contactor switch drops and switches to battery power. In the middle of all of this is the capacitor that provides a burst of electrical energy so when the switching of power sources occurs the radio doesn't even know it. I have decided to purchase another 50ah echoworthy Life4Po battery to strap and wire into the rackmount case. I am still going to leave the option for connecting to the box and probably have it switched to select the internal battery or select the external power.

After being retired due to covid I am now on oxygen. Stupid me lost one of the spare batteries for my portable concentrator and battery I have loses charge. I needed a solution to charge my concentrator as well as power my radio in a portable environment. Portable solar generators are expensive so I built one. It has 2 50ah Lithium ion phosphate batteries (LifePo4) wired in parallel to give me 100ah.

Here is what I included in the build:

• 3 USB 3.0 charging ports for phones, tablets, etc
• 1 USB C pc charging port 
• 1 12v cigarette lighter type receptical 
• 2 sets of 12v Anderson Powerpole connections for radios
• 1 set of Anderson Powerpoles orientated differently for solar charging 
• 1 BougeRV PWM LifePo4 Solar Charge Controller 
• Battery meter with a 300a shunt
• 2 large binding posts for a trolling motor (not connected yet)
• 2 50ah Eco-Worthy LifePo4 batteries 
• 1 XT60 port for connecting my LifePo4 ac battery charger directly to the batteries...no clip connections here.
• A fuse block with an overall rating of 100a.. each of the 6 legs has a max of 35a

Once I connect binding posts up I will install a 50a circuit breaker for the hole box.

I also have 2 165watt solar panels wired in parallel for charging the box if no ac is available for charging. A few hours of direct sunlight and its fully charged...

Everything works as intended. My wife now refuses to plug her phone into the wall wort because my box charges her phone faster...lol

My CB, Kenwood D700A and my Yaesu FT-891 are installed and operational in my '24 Silverado!!! For the CB I used the old truckstop coax and it seems to work great. For the 2m/440/HF I ordered the coax, UltraFlex 7 and pl259s from Messi & Pouloni in Italy. I ran 10 guage wire from the battery, around in front between the radiator and grill under the truck frame and drilled into a plug under the rear seat and installed the coax and power cables thru a grommet and filled it with silicone. No leaks there. I purchased a underseat storage compartment from Rough Country. I placed a 1x10 board between the inner and outer shell of the storage compartment which allowed me to screw the radio mounting brackets to it. Both the Ft-891 and D700A have remote heads. I have the main power under the seat connect to a buck/boost converter to keep the voltage at 13.8v for both radios. I have a 40a fuse at the battery and a 25a at each radio. I plan on adding a buck converted to drop the voltage on another power "branch" under the seat so I also run a Raspberry Pi so I can do digital ops on the road (FT8, FT4, JS8Call) by VNC into the raspberry pi and radio with my phone, tablet or laptop. I also want to wire a switching system under the seat to run everything from a Life4Po battery or my battery box above to do ops while not killing the truck battery. More to come on that later.. I brought the remote cables out from the front of underseat storage and ran then along the floor to between the seat channel and the center console. I will be putting that bundle of wires in a wire loom. My xyl did not want me putting any more holes in the carpet.

The CB and both control heads are mounted on a mount I purchased from SkymoUSA on Etsy that slides in one of the cupholders. It is 3D Printed in carbon fiber so I hope it withstands the summer heat. I'll post photos when I get a chance. For antennas I have a "lip"mount I ordered from DX Engineering made for the Silverado hood. That is where the 2m/440 antenna goes. On the bed of the truck I installed mounts from Breedlovemounts.com on each side in the front stake pockets. I purchased the ones for a Tunneau Cover, I just purchased used for $75. They are a little thinner than the heavy duty but they are still beefy. On the right side of the bed I have the CB antenna and on the left I have the HF Mount. I used the Wilson gumdrop mounts on both sides because they are heavy duty also. I bought it for testing purposes. For HF I use a Wolf River Coil while parked. The whip is too high to be traveling around. When the budget allows I would love to add a ATAS120. Thats it for now. see you on the air!!! 73's

I forgot to mention, the orginal D700A has a broken RJ45 jack. I found a complete D700A in immaculate condition on ebay for less than $200. It works great. I'm talking to a shop in Florida about repairing the old one.

Now ask me.. Who can I talk to in my truck? Answer: Anyone I want to...lol