Has anyone installed a ham rig in an Escape Hybrid?
Where did you put it?
How did you get power to it?
Was there any interferance to or from the vehicle's electronics?

There doesn't seem to be any reasonable way to get to the battery itself,
but I found that the 15A fuse that is labeled "Spare" is an actual circuit
(switched on with the ignition in AUX), if I can only find a good way to
tap into it.

 

I have an IC-208H in my hybrid. The tranceiver is mounted on the floor under the driver's seat, the remote control wire snakes up inside the floor console to the front where I have the head mounted above the center stack. I put a remote speaker under the dash on the driver's side.

Power goes directly to the battery (positive and negative wires with fuses directly connected to the battery...only way to go). There's a hole in the firewall behind the driver's side strut tower that was used for power and antenna lines. Just be sure it gets a grommet.

Everything I've read says it's a good idea to draw power direct from the battery for safety and noise reasons. I have not had any QRM issues on VHF or UHF from this setup. I don't have an HF rig (yet) so I can't attest to that.

Steve
KE7EIQ

 

Andy,

Send me an e-mail at my aliased arrl.net address - should be obvious to other hams. I had a 01 Escape, now a 05 Hybrid Escape. I've successfully put my rigs in both, and can give you the answer to "how to tap the fuse block" question.

Chris N5CV

 

I'll take another look. I had looked everywhere and found no holes. Looked like drilling a hole in the firewall would almost certainly puncture something important.

 

I don't think the hole had to be drilled, but even if it did (I didn't do the work) the engine side of the firewall behind the strut tower is bare...it's a pretty safe shot and convenient to the 12v battery.

 

Thanks for this, guys. I was wondering some of the same things myself. Where did you actually mount the radios?

Christine
kc4ck

 

Mine is under the driver's seat. You pretty much need something with a remote-able control head, there's no good place to put a whole radio that you can reach from the driver's seat.

 

Thanks again. My radios do have detachable faces for remote installation, and that was kind of what I was thinking of doing. I just wanted to know if anyone had any other ideas. Thanks again. You can go direct with me through the arrl alias forwarding system if you want.

73 de KC4CK