so after about three weekends of messing around i finally have my FT-7900 running decently in the truck and figured id share what tripped me up in case anybody else is going down this road

biggest thing was the power cable routing. i ran it directly to the battery like everyone says to do but i cheaped out on the fuse holder and the first time i went through a carwash the thing got wet and corroded inside, dropped voltage enough that the radio was doing weird things on transmit. so yeah get a proper weatherproof inline fuse holder, the cheap ones from the parts bin are not worth it

also spent way too long chasing an alternator whine before i figured out it was the ground on my antenna mount. the NMO mount on the roof was grounded through the roof sheet metal and there was a painted surface under there that i didnt fully scrape back. once i got bare metal contact it went away almost completely. still a tiny bit of noise but honestly its nothing at this point

the antenna is a 5/8 wave dual band whip, cant remember the brand right now, its the one that looks kind of like a thicker version of the standard rubber duck style. seems to work fine on the local repeaters and ive been hitting one thats about 40 miles out while rolling down the highway which im pretty happy with

anyway if anyones got questions or been through similar stuff im happy to compare notes

the ground thing gets so many people, i went through the exact same thing on my first install years ago. spent a whole afternoon with a noise canceling filter thinking that was the fix when all along it was just a bad ground path. once you know to look for it its one of the first things you check but nobody really warns you upfront

on the fuse holder, i switched to using the blue sea systems marine grade ones after a similar experience. they cost a few bucks more but theyre designed to live in wet environments and ive never had one give me trouble. the radios in the truck see a lot of temperature swings and moisture and cheap fuse holders just dont hold up

whats your SWR looking like on that whip? im always curious how those generic dual band mobiles do on 70cm especially, some of them are pretty mediocre up there

this is really helpful im actually about to do a similar install in my jeep next month with a 7900R. the alternator noise thing is something i was already worried about, jeeps are kind of notorious for electrical gremlins. good to know the antenna ground is worth checking before assuming its something more complicated