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Just thought I'd share my experiences so far with fitting my 9-5 Aero with two-way (VHF/UHF amateur radio) gear.
Space to mount radios of any sort in the 9-5 is minimal, at best, even with the small sizes of today's radio equipment. Remote mounting of the radio guts in the trunk with controls up front is the way to go.
Running power to any radio transceiver is a challenge without having to completely disassemble the insides of the car. What's nifty about the 9-5 is that there's a 30 amp circuit available in the trunk for a trailer hitch setup, located under the spare tire cover in a 10-pin harness. The big (2.5 mm) red wire is the one to tap to if you're looking for 12v in the back of the car. One will then need to put a 30 amp fuse in position A of the fuseblock. Some would argue that it's preferable to run power leads for a radio straight to the battery, but because I have the radio all the way in back, this appeared more convenient. We'll see once I finish hooking up power.
Getting wiring through the car is a breeze, as the great engineering throughout this car shines through--this thing's easy to work on! Pulling the trim pieces off the door sill (they lift right out) lets one get at the openable plastic conduit that the wiring harness runs through. I ran the control head wiring and speaker extension cable through this and snapped it all back together. This is much tidier than installing wiring in a 9000, where one has to unscrew the door sill trim.
The radio guts mount nicely under the rear parcel shelf in the trunk, to the right of the OnStar box. The control head fits snugly into the blank tray where an ashtray would go. I removed the tray, drilled a hole to run the control wiring through and slipped the tray back in place. The external speaker's mounted in the passenger side footwell, underneath the glovebox.
All that remains is installation of an antenna and hooking up the +12V. That'll happen tomorrow. I have photos of the install if anybody's interested in seeing the setup. Have a good weekend.
Paul
'01 Aero, 18k miles
amateur radio callsign KA0JQF
posted by 209.234.7...
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