Technician-licensed Amateur Radio operator
Matt Stewart
Chicago, Illinois

Pics of a former vehicle installation, in a 1995 Ford Ranger:

The radios are, from front/top, a Midland 70-1526B transceiver for use on 70cm; a Midland 70-1340A transceiver for use on two-meter; and a cheap Radio Shack CB transceiver. There's also a Radio Shack Pro-2053 300-channel trunking scanner, but it's behind the laptop screen in this picture.

The box mounted on top of the center vents isn't a radio head or anything. It's a Scan Gauge vehicle diagnostic tool. The laptop was only in the vehicle when we were storm spotting or when we wanted to use Streets and Trips for a road trip.

This is the 440 unit's mount. It's just a piece of steel from the hardware store, cut to length and bent in a U shape, with the appropriate mounting holes drilled in it. I painted the brackets with a few coats of black paint to make them look better. This radio was also used to communicate with Shadow Traffic -- I am radio number 258 on the Chicago-area Shadow Traffic system.

Here's the CB mount, similar to the other one. The 2M radio came with a bracket that could be used off either side or the end of the radio, so I didn't have to fabricate that.

These radios are actually mounted where the middle passenger seat used to be. The truck had a 60-40 split originally, leaving no room for mounting radios. After trying to spread the radios out (one on the dash, one on the rear of the cab between the seats), I considered buying bucket seats at the junk yard, but decided instead to try to cut that middle seat off of the driver's seat. The foam came out easily, and the Sawsall took care of the metal frame beneath it. I left the top fabric of the middle seat attached to the driver's seat, and used that flap of fabric to cover the empty place in the side of the driver's seat. It's not a factory job, but it was cheap and quick, looks pretty good and seems durable enough.

We connected the laptop with USB to an old cell phone to access radar from the National Weather Service while spotting. It was also connected to a hand-held GPS unit.

There's the scanner. It's sunk into the place where a passenger-side airbag would go, because my truck wasn't built with that airbag.

A friend of mine (KC9JKL) and I cut the seat out and made the laptop mount one night after work. It's 1" gas pipe and fittings with a piece of plywood on top. The base is connected to one of the passenger seat bolts and one other screw sunk into the floorboard. The laptop is strapped securely to the plywood table.

The top portion of the laptop mount could be disconnected easily and pulled out of the vehicle when it wasn't needed. This is what remains.