Hello - thanks for your reply! I will install a Kenwood TM-D700 2m/70cm dual bander, primarily for APRS use. Have you tried/been active on APRS? I'm also a glider pilot, and we have done some experiments with APRS trackers in gliders.
Yes, I guess drilling the roof might not be an option, for various reasons. One option I will try to explore is a rail mount. There are some rail mounts on the market, and they might fit the bill. Problems are of course to get a decent ground and also to rout the the feeder in somewhere.
I will put the control head on a plastic cell phone-type mounting bracket monted across the ventilation outlet just to the right of the steering wheel. Not ideal, but at least I think it will work, and not pull the vision to far from the road. When running APRS, it is a bit 'visual', in that position reports come in as a 'beep' and the call sign, range and approx. bearing to the other guy. Of course my radio needs to know where it is as well. It has a GPS input terminal. At first, I toyed with the idea of 'hacking' the bus in the car to get hold of GPS/NMEA info. But after getting to know the car better (have had it about 2 months) I realized that getting another GPS (or rather using a small bluetooth GPS I alrady have) would be far easier. So the plan is to throw the Bluetooth GPS in the front window and have a small Bluetooth 'dongle' on the serial GPS input terminal on the D700. I plan to mount the D700 in the rear, right side. Some space there. Speakers is also a problem... I really need two, because you can have simulateous RX on band A and B configurable in several different ways. Here I was thinking sacrificing the sunglass holder in the roof... Pretty neat if I can get them there...
Do you have any ham radio mounted in your X5 yet?
OK, sorry for long answer, I you would like to answer off-list, my email is:
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www.qrz.com also, if you would like to look me up!
Regards and 73!
SM0JWX/Rikard
Stockholm
Sweden