majic79
Member
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2012
- Messages
- 183
Went and bought one, had a chat with the guy at Knights communications (it's a little over 10 miles up the road from me!)
Whilst there, I also picked up a bracket suitable to mount an aerial on the car, and picked up a Sirio ML145 (1/8 wavelength) and some coax for it.
This weekend I picked a location for it (roof bars) then worked out where I was going to wire it and how to get the cable into the cab, and route it while it was in there. I pulled the handles down and carefully pulled the edge of the head lining to one side and could see where the sunroof ended and how much room there was between the roof skin and headlining. Looking at the mounting feet of the roof rack, I reckoned I could get the cable to route through that, which could then be plugged with sealant, and give a tidy finish, bringing the cable easily into the cab. After popping off the cover, I could see there was a place where it would all go with reasonable ease. It took only a second to decide to follow it through!
I'd bought a cable with a PL259 already soldered onto the end of it, so I had to drill a large enough hole to do the job. This turns out to be around 18mm. I didn't have any 18mm drill bits, and if anyone decides to emulate this, don't do what I did, just go to B&Q and buy the drill bit there (£15!)
As I had plenty of spare 2 and 3mm bits, I marked a circle, centre punched equally around it, then proceeded to drill.... this is where i found out that there's a reinforcing bracket under the skin at this point, and there's a cross beam just under that.
At this point, I was annoyed, so I went online, found out B&Q sold 18mm drill bits, as well as 20mm grommets. Off I went into town, and then I was back to work, 10 seconds with an 18mm drill bit accomplished twice what I'd done, wasting an hour and a half with little drills!
Sadly, as I was chasing daylight a bit, I didn't get many more photos, but I did get a pic of the aerial in place:
Better pics to come
Whilst there, I also picked up a bracket suitable to mount an aerial on the car, and picked up a Sirio ML145 (1/8 wavelength) and some coax for it.
This weekend I picked a location for it (roof bars) then worked out where I was going to wire it and how to get the cable into the cab, and route it while it was in there. I pulled the handles down and carefully pulled the edge of the head lining to one side and could see where the sunroof ended and how much room there was between the roof skin and headlining. Looking at the mounting feet of the roof rack, I reckoned I could get the cable to route through that, which could then be plugged with sealant, and give a tidy finish, bringing the cable easily into the cab. After popping off the cover, I could see there was a place where it would all go with reasonable ease. It took only a second to decide to follow it through!
I'd bought a cable with a PL259 already soldered onto the end of it, so I had to drill a large enough hole to do the job. This turns out to be around 18mm. I didn't have any 18mm drill bits, and if anyone decides to emulate this, don't do what I did, just go to B&Q and buy the drill bit there (£15!)
As I had plenty of spare 2 and 3mm bits, I marked a circle, centre punched equally around it, then proceeded to drill.... this is where i found out that there's a reinforcing bracket under the skin at this point, and there's a cross beam just under that.
At this point, I was annoyed, so I went online, found out B&Q sold 18mm drill bits, as well as 20mm grommets. Off I went into town, and then I was back to work, 10 seconds with an 18mm drill bit accomplished twice what I'd done, wasting an hour and a half with little drills!
Sadly, as I was chasing daylight a bit, I didn't get many more photos, but I did get a pic of the aerial in place:
Better pics to come