so i picked up an ft-857d a few months back with the intention of running it mobile and i finally got around to actually doing the install last weekend. ran the power leads direct to the battery with an inline fuse, got a lip mount on the roof for a nagoya mag mount (yeah i know i should do a proper mount but baby steps), and everything seemed fine at first.

the problem is the receive audio is just... bad. like its tinny and quiet even with the volume cranked and the external speaker i got from amazon isnt really helping. i have the radio sitting on the center console and the internal speaker is basically pointing at the seat so that probably doesnt help. im running mostly 2m and 440 around town for the local repeaters and some simplex.

is there a specific external speaker people recommend for mobile use or is it more about placement? ive seen some guys mount speakers up near the rearview mirror area and that seems smart but i dont really know how to run wires up there cleanly. any advice from folks who have actually done this would be great, ive been kind of winging it so far

the speaker placement is almost certainly your issue. having it fire down into the seat is rough, ive been there. what i ended up doing in my jeep was getting one of those little round kenwood external speakers, the SP-23 i think, and velcro'd it up on the a-pillar just below the sun visor. makes a huge difference honestly, suddenly you can actually hear traffic on the repeater without turning it up so loud it startles you at red lights.

for running the wire cleanly, most vehicles have a rubber grommet or a gap along the a-pillar trim that you can tuck wire behind with a plastic pry tool. takes maybe 20 minutes once you figure out the trim piece. dont overthink it. also if you havent already, double check your squelch settings on the 857 because that radio has a few different squelch modes and sometimes it ships with settings that arent ideal for mobile use where signals can vary a lot.

oh man i just did almost the exact same install a couple months ago, different radio but same situation with the speaker. i ended up just zip tying mine to the dash vent which is kind of janky but it works way better than pointing at the floor lol. someday ill do it properly