so i've been putting this off for like two years but i finally got around to mounting my FT-857D in the cab of my F-150. ran the power cable straight to the battery through the firewall, used the supplied fuse holder and everything. antenna is a Larsen NMO on the roof with a hole mount, coax routing was a pain but got it tucked under the door sill pretty clean.

thing is im getting a weird buzz on transmit when the engine is running. doesnt matter if im on 2m or 70cm or even HF, just this annoying alternator whine that varies with RPM. i put a ferrite on the coax near the radio and another one on the power leads but its still there. read something about bonding straps but im not totally sure where to put them or how many. anybody dealt with this before in a newer truck? also wondering if the location i picked for the radio head is going to drive me crazy long term, its kind of between the seat and the center console and i have to look down pretty far to see it.

other than those two things it actually sounds great on receive and the output power seems solid, did a quick check into the local repeater and got good reports.

the alternator whine is almost always a grounding issue in my experience. the bonding straps are key -- you want to bond the hood to the firewall, the firewall to the chassis, and if you can do the hood to the chassis too that helps a lot. i use short braided straps from the hardware store, the wider the better. also make sure your negative lead from the radio goes directly to the battery negative, not to the chassis somewhere.

i fought this same thing in my silverado for weeks and turns out the chassis ground near where i tapped was just not clean enough. cleaned it down to bare metal and added a bonding strap from the engine block to the firewall and the whine dropped way down. might not disappear completely but should be way more manageable. some guys also run a noise filter on the power line but id try the bonding first since its free.

nice, the 857 is such a good mobile radio. had mine in a jeep for a couple years. yeah the head unit placement can be tricky, i ended up getting one of those RAM mount arms and repositioning it a few times before i was happy. looking down too far is a real thing especially while driving, if you can get it more in your sightline without blocking anything important its worth the hassle.

on the whine thing, +1 to what the other guy said about grounding. also check if the whine changes when you touch different metal parts of the cab, sometimes helps trace where its coming in from.