It's been a while since I last posted anything because there's just been so much going on in my personal life, that I've rarely had a minute to spare! Anyway, I finally found an hour to install a mobile transceiver into my car and thought I'd briefly share my experiences.
The radio is a YAESU FTM-200D which covers VHF, UHF and C4FM. I bought this just because it was so cheap - a lovely secondhand item found on FaceBook. It was absolutely as new condition, complete in original box, with all the original accessories and manual. To make it even more of bargain, it also came with the BlueTooth Module.
Brand new, these radios cost circa £300, but I got this for £185. Originally, I was going to look for a 300D but then I remembered that as much as it's nice to have two receivers, the fact is, it's kinda wasted in a mobile environment, so this time I thought I'd keep things super simple and opt for the single receiver 200D.Needless to say, with twin VFO's you can still easily monitor VHF and UHF and then switch to the active one. The radio's PMG function also makes it a breeze to monitor your favourite frequencies.
The FTM-200D is virtually identical in size to the FTM300D and shares the same screen, which is small, but more than big enough to work in a mobile situation. The front of the radio is detachable, so you can easily mount it somewhere really useful and tuck away the bulky bit elsewhere.
The built-in speaker is really quite loud, meaning that there's no need to have an external one as long as you're not tucking the main part of the radio too far away. For me, this wouldn't be a problem because after spending time considering it carefully, the best place would be between the two front seats.
In my car there is an unusually large gap between the seats and by fixing some Velcro to the underside of the radio-bracket, I could very conveniently locate the radio with the speaker pointing up to me. It also meant that the microphone could be located just below the gear lever - easy to grab.
So, about the car itself - it's like one of those amazing Barn Finds that you hear about. It is 24 years old and until 18 months ago it had just 4,000 miles on the clock!!! 😲😲😲
I was sooooo lucky to find this thing because it's basically a new car for 24yr old car money! It cost me a couple of grand and has full service history. The original owner (an elderly gent) bought the car in 2001 and drove an astonishingly low 400 miles per year and despite that ultra-low mileage, he had it dealer-serviced every single year!😲
Looking through the receipts, I could see that last year the unworn tyres were replaced because rubber doesn't age well. The cam belt was also replaced for the same reason.The engine ticks over like a purring kitten and the engine bay looks as good as the rest of the car. When I put it through an MOT last month, the examiner was chuckling as he handed over a Pass Certificate with no advisories. He said the car was amazing.
Well, in a short space of time, I've got the mileage up to 16,000 miles and I've collected a few scrapes and scratches and broken an armrest, lol. If the original owner saw it, he'd strangle me!
Quite apart from the condition of the car, I have to say that from a practical point of view it's the perfect car for me. It's got amazing amounts of storage, a super comfortable cabin and a great boot space for my dog, complete with overhead seatbelt to restrain her.
In retirement, this is very much my 'hobby-car'. I use it to get to local take-offs for radio and permanently store a lot of my bulky accessories in a box in the boot, such as antennas, masts, tripod, etc. I also keep a painting set in there too.
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| A staggering 550 Ltrs of space 😮 |
If I'm doing HF and the weather's not too good, I can sit in the back of the car where there's masses of space to get properly comfortable and take advantage of the built-in trays on the back of the seats.
Anyway, back to the FTM-200 installation - I managed to locate the Yaesu's control-panel in the upper right hand corner of the windscreen, hiding the cable neatly behind the A-Post trim and under the carpet. In the image above it looks quite imposing but it's actually not. It feels like the perfect spot. And it's very secure, with no wobbling when you're pressing the buttons.
Another advantage of placing it up in the corner of the screen is that it's really out of sight from prying eyes and if you put the sunvisor down, it's completely hidden.
Providing power to the radio was initially a bit of a head scratcher because it meant running a quite heavy power lead to the engine bay to reach the battery. Or that's what I thought!!It turns out that the battery is actually located underneath the front passenger seat! How handy is that???😁
The antenna is currently on a mag-mount, but at some point in the near future I'll get around to fitting something more permanent.
The FTM-200D is a great little radio, providing a full 50W on both bands with a handy 25W setting for us Foundation License holders and a QRP friendly 5W setting. The controls are incredibly easy to get to grips with - even programming repeaters 'on the fly' is an easy process.
The PGM feature provides means of scanning your favourite 5 frequencies and that's enough to monitor VHF/UHF calling channels plus another three local repeaters. There's also over 1000 memories available, all with alpha-tagging and you can quickly change scan modes between VHF frequencies, UHF frequencies, AirBand frequencies or ALL.
The colour display is nice and clear but it's not a touch-screen. Apart from the usual ability to show VFO A & B , it can also show a single VFO with an active bandscope below it. Alternatively, you may opt to have a display with time and date which is my personal preference.
There's a built-in voice recorder which can record both RX and TX on VFO-A, VFO-B or both! Very handy for when you're driving and can't write down callsigns which you want to log later.
Built-in GPS provides accurate time and position and APRS is very well implemented. There's a separate manual dedicated to APRS and it's very comprehensive. I'm not personally into APRS, but if you are, I'm sure you'll be happy with Yaesu's implementation.
I won't rattle on about every little detail because you can download the manual and read more about it yourself. What I can tell you is that the 200 is a cracking little radio which should fit into most vehicles with ease. The separation cable which is used to connect the detached front panel to the remote base is included in the package. What is not included is the SCU-58 cable data-cable, so I tried an SCU-20 that I already owned and it works perfectly well!
The radio is super easy to operate and I can't think of any function that I miss over the 300 in a mobile environment. Below are a few images showing various operational screenshots and some specs. I'll do a more thorough review in a couple of months time.
Thanks for visiting.
