• You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
I often cheat and use copper pipe scraps and a shop press...
Hell.....that's all friend of mine uses. Just reworked some of his connections on battery leads for 97 Ford 250. Looks terrible. Refuses to go buy solder on clamps. Claims the amps unsolder them.
Bull......just cheap. Should have snapped a pic of the 2 and 3 inch wood screws between those cheap batt clamps and terminals. :confused:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover
Hell.....that's all friend of mine uses. Just reworked some of his connections on battery leads for 97 Ford 250. Looks terrible. Refuses to go buy solder on clamps. Claims the amps unsolder them.
Bull......just cheap. Should have snapped a pic of the 2 and 3 inch wood screws between those cheap batt clamps and terminals. :confused:

Yes, one hopes you will covertly take a snap. Funny, sure, but if it works, it’s part of that baling wire & duct-tape mystique of which Gen X is deathly afraid.

Proof that understanding is dangerous


The bastards destroyed the Boy Scouts wherein untold numbers of boys were introduced to theory & practice. Deliberate destruction, for this very reason. Act in concert with next to nothing, and get it done.

Well, there’s good enough to get it over the next muddy ridge versus running around from hereon when proper supplies are still available. As “get by” has consequences.

The Merit Badge was tackling both theory & practice often having to ask for help from an adult to whom one was not related or was outside of family friends, school & church.

No man an island (and all that).

Good luck finding a circa 1940 Boy Scout Handbook at your library. It was known then that war was coming, and American boys were needed to finish planetary conquest for their masters.

.
 
Last edited:
Weathers been wrong since last post to do any work outside underneath pickup. The Pete got nearly all of that energy.

Have quite a lot of RF Bonds to install and will be doing just that the next few days.
 
D3BDB5C3-37B9-4617-87F9-9BCA75114CF0.jpeg

Spent yesterday making RF Bonds and some new 6-AWG 12V Grounds (white).

Some BJ RADIO-NUT, “buttons & bows”.

(undertaker, each is originally 17-separate pieces prior to assembly; no swearing, no cursing, just leaning back on the couch; only “work” was several passes of lugs thru hydraulic crimpers).

— 3/4” & 1/2” tinned woven-copper braid terminated to tinned lugs in several lengths.

— Cut at 8”, the 3/4” is 9.5” lug center to lug center. (Red).

— The top group is 3/4” cut at 6” with a 7.5” lug center. (No color).

— Next batch (12/ea) will be 3/4” cut at 4” (a 5.5” LC).

A great deal of braid + lugs left with which to make the custom-lengths I’ll skip past after any measurements on the first under-truck workday.

Mentally, I wasn’t up to a custom-cut locator chart done beforehand. I’ve been underneath and surveyed it fairly. Xtra-short per location got dropped as a goal.

— Fasteners, etc, taped into place on each.

My days of just throwing out a groundsheet plus tools & supplies are past. More to go, but this lengthy exercise will allow me to work while under pickup without stopping for supply. (Color denotes type).

— Measure, reach for appropriate length, brush, Dremel-ize, drill, and attach.

Am tired from almost a month on the road. This was a decent way to spend the first day home. (That’s the “joke” of buttons & bows . . time to take satisfaction and over-do it a little).

I expect to have pre-made left over. To go into supply box for the next vehicle.


.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ForestRunner98
Great weather.

I pulled a chair over to set and ponder the first of four (4) pickup truck doors. Looked at the hinges (8-total) to be jumped, and thought, “shoulda made this set of jumpers shorter”.

Then recalled my 90-degree drill adaptor got lost, and that since this pickup is seventeen (17) years old, who gives a flying F?”.

Okay. Not prettiest, but worked out fine.

Mainly wrote this post to say that FULL jumper assembly beforehand was the right approach. (By “full” I mean that screws plus their bits taped in place on lug; as in pic in a post above).

Irritations limited to placement. (Sharpie marked).


Drill, Dremel, Dollop, Done.

A). 9/64 drill bit in an old Milwaukee.

B). Dremel with abrasive cone-shape bit.

C). PENETROX. Thinnest film

D). Cordless to drive: #10-SS 5/8” sheetmetal screws with SS lock & SS flat washer over tinned-copper #4 lug and inner/outer serrated SS washer underneath. (Loosely; adjust fit to accommodate closed doors; then finish).

You’ll recall Mr Applegates warning about using short sheetmetal screws. Mine are not short at 5/8”. But the exposed portion of screw shank past the assembly is short. (3/8” or less).


.
 
Last edited:
CAD55314-B380-4798-969B-F06E1ECE926E.jpeg


RF BONDS!!

Now it feels like I’ve started. Ten (10) jumpers to do the pickup doors and tailgate.

The hood-to-cowl has two (2) and the bed-to-cab has two (2).

Fourteen (14) of the easy-access locations now done.

Tomorrow I’ll slide under the rear. Haven’t decided how to bond the Drive Axle or the leaf springs. Maybe with existing. Maybe a variation on how exhaust will be done.

In the meantime, hitch receiver, antiroll bar and bumper shouldn’t be too bad. The rear of the bed both sides, also.

Figured I would employ bilaterally symmetrical bonding on truck underside.

Port & Starboard done as mirror-image, generally, from Bow to Stern.

I’m going to throw on some of the 12V DC Grounds made from 6-AWG at Stern for Tail-lights & Trailer Hitch Wiring. Supplant any original I find (had bumper-mount reverse lamps — floods — back there many moons ago that need replacing).

.
 
Last edited:
View attachment 41377


RF BONDS!!

Now it feels like I’ve started. Ten (10) jumpers to do the pickup doors and tailgate.

The hood-to-cowl has two (2) and the bed-to-cab has two (2).

Fourteen (14) of the easy-access locations now done.

Tomorrow I’ll slide under the rear. Haven’t decided how to bond the Drive Axle or the leaf springs. Maybe with existing. Maybe a variation on how exhaust will be done.

In the meantime, hitch receiver, antiroll bar and bumper shouldn’t be too bad. The rear of the bed both sides, also.

Figured I would employ bilaterally symmetrical bonding on truck underside.

Port & Starboard done as mirror-image, generally, from Bow to Stern.

I’m going to throw on some of the 12V DC Grounds made from 6-AWG at Stern for Tail-lights & Trailer Hitch Wiring. Supplant any original I find (had bumper-mount reverse lamps — floods — back there many moons ago that need replacing).

.
Do not forget to also bond your Exhaust pipe to your frame rails about every 12 to 18in. I did mine and it helped ALOT.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover
Reminds me of how carried away i got with my first bonding job. Other than bonding the hood, bed and exhaust it was a waste of time. Now I just add bonding until my swr goes up to 1.5:1ish and I know I've got a good ground.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Slowmover
Reminds me of how carried away i got with my first bonding job. Other than bonding the hood, bed and exhaust it was a waste of time. Now I just add bonding until my swr goes up to 1.5:1ish and I know I've got a good ground.


(One of my posts, where, I just woke up and feel rested thus an all-too-long exercise in thinking aloud. In seven sections).


Yeah, it’s boys fun. No question.

I’ll re-iterate — and expand — what I’ve written previously. The thread title is about a puck-mount on a pickup roof, but the pickup is part of a two-vehicle system.

There’s a point most folks get tired, they leave and go home.
I get tired, I leave by moving home elsewhere altogether.

— Had I a teeny unibody commuter car there just wouldn’t be much to do. That vehicle is at the far end of the spectrum per size AND design AND use versus this one. (It’s a disposable acquisition). Where I think your words best fit. (That I’ve seen others also say).


I). This is a body-on-frame, one-ton, long-bed diesel pickup. Permanent acquisition. Already one-ton curb weight above shipping weight without the driver aboard or trailer hitched. Of an age where corrosion has gotten a start, and in a post or posts above I noted that 12V DC Grounds need to be replaced and/or supplemented, plus that electrical service upgrades are planned to complement remote parking where the truck engine is the available genset.


II). I haven’t yet installed a metal job-site tool chest in the bed behind the cab, but one is coming. Where most of the metal tools & job accessories will be stored (the bed is already “full” under a topper). What tops it off is 350-500# of work-related gear currently in the Peterbilt. That truck bed is effectively my garage.

Makes sense to me to try to minimize any “noise”, there.Bonding the chest to an already bonded bed. In other words, potentials bonded as well as can be reasonably done. The “whole” of the vehicle includes substantial payload, much of it ferrous metal.


III). This trucks main jobs is in being hooked to a 35’ aluminum travel trailer. It’s not a commuter or grocery-getter. TTL hitched length of 63’ (an OTR tractor-trailer is 72’). The trailer is about 9.5’ tall (at roof A/C unit). An 18,000-lb combined rig.

The pickup is a literal part of the house.

I figure it best to try to separate problems of truck versus trailer by thoroughness with each.


IV). This vehicle pair can’t be separated (in a manner of speaking). They are both (potentially) Mobile & Base Station.

Imagine four (4) potential states of:

1). Truck, solo
2). Truck, hitched
3) Trailer, solo
4). Trailer, hitched

Working the radio from either vehicle during any of those four (4) conditions.

Example 1: One might be pulled over with the rig set for traveling still hitched and operating from the trailer. Antenna mounted on either vehicle or portable (as with a tripod). Power draw is via that Cummins running at high idle.

Example 2: operating from the pickup with a roof or body mount antenna while hitched to the trailer (which is attached both mechanically & electrically; much more so than as with a cargo trailer). Trailer systems may be in operation (more than just measurable amp draw).

Maybe there’ll be an all-mode transceiver with a fat screwdriver antenna attached some day. Either vehicle or both. With any part of a Radio Installation I prefer not to have to re-do any of that which can be avoided NOW as the two vehicles are electrically-common.

A). Station in one vehicle and antenna on the other.
B). Station in one vehicle, amp in another and remote antenna
C). (Invent your own weird concoction. With sprinkles).


V). If you’ll read RV-centric ham radio threads you’ll note that most operation is done while stationary. Vehicles detached. While that state may define the majority of Amateur operation, it will not describe all operation. (I may have son and his family along; driver doesn’t necessarily equate to operator).

So, if we emphasize that the vehicle is one-half the antenna then surpassing what’s necessary may not be obvious where two vehicles are effectively two-in-one Station. At least, I have not seen this addressed in this manner in reading around.

I don’t care if it’s just some extra work. If the effectiveness of the work tapers down to nothing . . that’s fine also.

Will it create its own problems?
I’m not that far long, yet.

You’d have to admit it’d be damned funny if, say, reception improved by hitching the other vehicle. (Some guys turn the array. I back the Dodge under and snap the latch). That it won’t be so doesn’t change that an effect is present.

The bigger picture:

Something important which truck driving teaches a man is that there just isn’t time nor a safe place to try to pull over on the highway and re-work that weakly-received signal. One gets it the first time or not at all. Chance encountered. Won or lost. That’s the goal.


VI). Thus, the “expense” of more RF Bond supply isn’t significant versus the initial acquisition cost of the tools, gear & supply. (Plus that there are other vehicles yet to do). Takes longer to create the RF Bonds than it does to attach them. The dollar-expense of 25-made versus 75-made just isn’t great, nor is the time (past my infirmities).
.

VII). The trailer is a subject I haven’t yet surveyed; unlike most RV’ers who sell the house and hit the road full-time, it’s already my home prior to retirement. Removing panels that enclose the underside isn’t a job I’m looking forward to, but RF Bonds will be installed before it’s done as part of other work needed. (Effectively, skin & structural ribs are rubber-isolated from each other).

A travel trailer already thirty years of age — dealing with corrosion & electricity in its various manifestations — is a FAR bigger job than what the pickup requires. I won’t be doing a body-off-frame rehab, but all systems access is primarily from underneath coupled to interior access provided.


So, . . perspective:

RF Bond Job Description: Laying on the ground after sitting around on the couch.


.
 
Last edited:

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • dxBot:
    Tucker442 has left the room.
  • @ BJ radionut:
    LIVE 10:00 AM EST :cool:
  • @ Charles Edwards:
    I'm looking for factory settings 1 through 59 for a AT 5555 n2 or AT500 M2 I only wrote down half the values feel like a idiot I need help will be appreciated