Enjoyment of the
whispering winds, the zephyrs, the airstreams of the Sierra
Nevada and Great Basin areas of the United States in a
recreational vehicle.
In March 2015, I asked Russell (KB6YAF)
about installing his ham radio and antenna's in his Classic
Airstream Motorhome. Here is what he had to say
As far as ham stuff for the bus,
this is what I have done so far…..I installed my Icom 706 MkIIG
radio inside. This radio has a detachable face which I
mounted on a piece of plexiglass and bent the ends to fit inside
of the little oddiments box on the dash. It is a snug fit
and stays in there. The radio itself is mounted behind the
driver’s seat on the side wall. I also mounted the
Anderson PowerPole strip above it that is wired directly to the
batteries.
The face of the Icom 706MkIIG mounted on the plexiglass and slid
into the oddiments box.
You can see the plexiglass which
I trimmed up to fit snugly into the oddiments box. I bent the
plexiglass with heat from a torch that I wave over the
plexiglass on one side then the other being careful not to stop
on it to catch it on fire!!! Once the plexiglass
is heated up, it is very soft.
Then I bent it into a 90 deg. bend and held it there
until it cooled and held its new position.
Here is a shot of the actual
Icom 706 radio mounted on the side wall behind the
driver’s seat. The RigRunner Anderson PowerPole connector
block is the BEST. There is a fuse for each input.
If you notice, on this particular model, there are two USB
connectors to power up my cell phone!! I bought that from
Westmountainradio.com
They’re not cheap, but a good thing to have.
- As for the antennas, I ran across a
photo while browsing the Tarheels Antenna
site. Low and behold, there was a guy that had
an Airstream 310 motorhome just like mine. He was
showing off his Tarheels screwdriver antenna and the mount (see
page 3, Tarheel RV's). I also have a screwdriver
antenna, but wasn’t too keen on buying the Tarheels mount
for $129!!!! So, I went to a place to buy a piece of
flat
aluminum which I bent and
drilled and mounted my screwdriver antenna on the exact
same place as the guy did in his photo. The screwdriver
antenna works pretty well on all the HF bands, but I think I
need more grounding!!!
Here is my installation photo on the RussBus
Here is the full shot of my screwdriver antenna.
Here is the installation of the VHF/UHF antenna for 2m and
440MHz….
The antenna mount was already on the bus when I bought it.
The former owners had a CB antenna mounted on it. I
removed the CB antenna and put my Diamond dual band whip
on there instead.
Now, here is my mount for the rear of the RussBus….It’s a solid
piece of aluminum rod that is 5/8” in diameter (I think) I
fits right inside a piece of 3/4” PVC white pipe that can be
used for an antenna mast if necessary. What I also plan
for this aluminum rod is to use it to support an MFJ telescopic
mast that I plan to use as a support for a vertical long wire
that I can strap onto the aluminum rod. Either that, or I
have a flag pole mount that can be mounted onto the aluminum rod
also. When I get the MFJ fiberglass telescopic pole, I will put
a piece of wire inside it, and up about 43’ then into a 4:1
balun, then to a piece of coax and run it into the bus maybe
into a coax switch in order to switch between the screwdriver
antenna and the vertical antenna. Obviously,
the vertical antenna is something that will be put up while
camping and taken down in order to drive !!! I did however
see some folks with other brands that had a roof top mount with
a linear actuator that, when powered up, raised
and lowered their vertical
antennas.
Well, that’s it for now. You know as well as I that when
it comes to ham radio stuff, it is always in a state of
modification!!!! It’s the nature of the beast.
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