G0TQN Mobile

I've been operating mobile since 1993 on 2m and mainly 10m, although i do venture onto 12, 15, 17 and 40m occasionally with a change of aerial. I'm fortunate enough to have a job where i travel between calls during the day so this gives me the opportunity to use the radio on the move.

The above photo shows my current car with the 10m aerial in the middle of the roof and 2m aerial on a boot-lip mount at the top of the tailgate. The 10m aerial is a top loaded helical whip and the 2m one is a flexible 1/4 wave whip. Because i work as a radio engineer i'm lucky enough to be able to get away with drilling the roof to mount the aerials, this works wonders with eliminating virtually any noise generated by the vehicle and maintaining a low VSWR.

When i first started mobile operation the budget was very limited and i converted an old Cleartone 2010 PMR radio for use on 2m. This had 10 channels on a thumbwheel which i tripled up to 30 with a 3 position toggle switch, this gave me S10 - S23 and all the repeater channels. This radio ran 16w on transmit and i modified the receiver front end to give me a reasonable 12db sinad for 0.3uV at the aerial socket. On 10m i started off with an LCL 2740FM converted CB rig and a modified Zetagi CB amplifier running 80w. I fitted repeater shift to the LCL and modified it's receiver front end which gave me an amazing 12db sinad for 0.12uV at the aerial socket! If you are interested in 10m FM and have a limited budget the LCL is an excellent radio.

I operated mobile with the CB and PMR equipment until 1998 when i upgraded to an Icom IC706 Mk2 (pictured above). With the remote mounting head it fits very neatly into the car as shown in the photo. This radio runs full power all day every day and for a small box with "all your eggs in one basket" i cannot fault it. I don't use an ATU in the car, i always use a resonant aerial to make sure i get the maximum from my mobile station, and this seems to have paid off as i worked from England to Australia and most countries in-between (usually at 70mph)!

Unlike a lot of modern radios the IC706 also works very well on AM and over the last 3 winters i got really hooked on 10m AM and hooked up almost daily with some very pleasant Hams in North America. The 706 runs about 35w of carrier on AM (6w on VHF) and during sunspot maximum is more then enough even on the move.

When time allows i will update this page with more information on helical aerials and mobile operation.

Happy mobiling and see you on 29.6mhz FM.