ICOM-5100 -- A Mobile Focused Mobile HAM Radio (ongoing)

For me, the excitement of HAM radio has been all about having a functional setup for communication while doing activites. Generally that focus has been on comms while skiing or driving race cars, which is generally easy enough and the locations known enough I can program in a few repeaters and be all set. As I go further down the ham rabbit hole though, a new sector of interest has been growing for me : comms while driving.

On my most recent trip prep for a race at The Ridge Motorspors Park, I found myself thinking "It would be kind of fun to reach out to some HAM radio repeaters while schlepping up and down the I-5 Corridor". Now, this can be done with a handheld, but a lot of forethought goes into that process such as finding and programming all of the repeaters... and even then, you might not navigate to having picked up the right repeaters, or simply find repeaters nobody frequents. This was my experience on said trip, and I quickly lost interest.

Enter the ICOM-5100. Not only does this bad boy put out 50w to a rooftop mounted Antenna giving me some serious range... but the ICOM-5100 also promises to utilize GPS to allow you to quickly search for nearby repeaters! Now that sure seems like EXACTLY what I am after. Just cruise up the highway, look for nearby repeaters and try and reach out to some folks while I'm out and about driving!

Now there's a new and far fancier version of the 5100 coming out soon, the 5200... and I'll admit it's pretty schnazy, but it also seemed like more than I needed. Fortunately for me though, I found a brand new in the box ICOM 5100 for $350 shipped to me and snugged it. Enter a cheap rooftop antenna and some other acessories... I'm all in $450 and I've got a pretty capable Ham radio setup for my truck... but will it live up to expecations? What's involved in owning it? Do I like owning it? Read on to see the evolution of my ownership of the 5100.

Installation of the Icom 5100 on my Ram 3500

So my pesonal Ram 3500 is pretty darn new and also low mileage. I only use my truck for select adventures as it has the turning radius of the death star and takes up a similar amount of park spaces. While it's a great truck and all, it's really just meant for hauling and is overkill for getting groceries or just around town stuff. We also have a hybrid car for fuel effeciency and two street legal corvettes... so why would we take this behemouth out when I can get twice as far for half as much, or get there twice as quick with a smile on my face?

Due to the limited applicability of this truck, it has a pretty modest amount of use and has retained a lot of it's value... value which I don't want to ruin by cutting up a bunch of excessive holes in the car or doing my typical lemons grade work! Functionality is also key, along with not getting in an accident... so I need the radio somewhere I can operate it with minimal distraction.

These needs combined gave me the following requirements:

1. Whatever I do has to be reversible with no major irreversible modifications to the car. That means no drilling holes or permantently dash mounting anything.
2. My head unit mounting location needs to be accessible and within reach of myself as a driver and within peripheral view of where I am driving.
3. My main unit needs to be stashed somewhere safe from getting damaged by other folks feet.
4. My insatallation needs to be clean and durable. I like my stuff to last!

My Installation Plan After Chatting with Various Folks:

• Install a magnetic roof mounted antenna, run it along the rear of the cab, under the car, and up through a small access port under the passenger seat.
• Run power from the passenger side battery (this rig has 2x batteries) down along the frame wall and back up through the passenger foot well.
• Secure the primary unit underneath the passenger seat where the car jack would normally go. There's a fat chance in heck I'm changing the tire on this car with a cheap bottle jack and the supplies they provided... so I might as well put this there.
  • Added bonus: Design up my own mount that gives the unit space off the floor to help kee it cool since operating at 50w can supposedly generate a fair bit of heat.
• Attach the head unit in my peripheral view with a ram style mount, but do it in such a way I can remove the the unit if it is block my view.
• Attach a speaker (since this doesn't have audio out to tie in with my car) in a convenient out of the way location.

The plans sound simple enough... let's see how it went!

Antenna Routing

(pics and details to come)

Power Routing

(pics and details to come)

Custom 3D Printed Main Unit Mount

So for whatever reason the kit for the ICOM 5100A does not include the mounting kit. This may be simply because there's so many different ways folks mount these it just wasn't worth including, or it saved them $5, who knows. Whatever the story, I was going to need to do my own bracket, and what better chance to practice my CAD skills and utilize my 3D printers!

My design approach was a bit different than most, and I'll be sharing the file. I wanted the unit slightly off the floor of my truck to help it get better cooling as the unit would be in the air versus being pushed right up against a nice insulative car interior layer. I also wanted some cutouts along the side to further allow air to move around the unit.

In the picture above, you can see the side cutouts. Ignore the protruding screw, I still need to go get the correct hardware!

Here is a rear view of the unit upside down. As you can see, there's an air gap below the unit (or above if you mount it this way) which should help the unit remain relatively cool when compared to mounting directly on an insulating surface.

And here's one last view where you can see the unit from the mounting face (in my case, bottom as viewed upside down) with the 4x holes for M6 bolts.

Head Unit & Speaker Placement + Interior Wiring

(info on head unit mounting to come)

I'll write soon about the mounting location and why I went with it and what I think of it.

(Picture speaker to come)

As for a speaker, I was bummed to discover that this unit didn't have a line level audio output that I could simply run into my cars auxiliary input. This would have let me just run directly into my cars stereo system. Now... this may not be desirable for most, as you can't listen to music and faff around on your radio... but since you shouldn't be transmitting music anyways and I find I always turn my music down to have a conversation anyways... not having a line level output sure seems like a big miss on the part of ICOM.

Despite all of that complaining, I grabbed a legitimate ICON speaker (ICOM SP-35) for a very modest price and overnight delivery. While there were cheaper units... the price jump from a cheap amazon one to this one was so modest, it seemed reasonable to treeat myself. Plus the reviews were mixed on all of the affordable $15-20 units.

(more information, pictures and more to come detailing the finish part of the process)

How the ICOM 5100 Works For Me

Here's a picture of the ICOM 5100 while driving down the road during some initial testing, as taken only moderately intrusively by my most wonderful wife. The ICOM-5100 is nice and visible and easy to interact with in this location. It is worth noting that from a higher up where my eyes actually are the ICOM-5100 does not block any of my view. We considered taking a picture of exactly where my eyes are, but something about not being able to see where I am going was an issue.

Early impressions were that the UI was reasonable to navigate. A few quirks left me uncertain but I was able to quickly save a few channels to memory to experiment with while out and about. I also was able to reach a large amount of repeaters that I normally cannot reach with clarity, so the combination of 50w on a roof mounted antenna somehow outperforms a 10w HT inside of my vehicle.

Things I love About the Radio

• Exceptional RX and TX quality. No surpise there though right?

• Bright and easy to read display with LONG channel names. This really helps to add relevant details like location, if it's wide (allstar / echolink) and I sometimes like add other suffixes for quick detail recognition.

Gripes so far:

• When operating in non A/B mode it would be nice if both the left and the right knob adjustment knobs controlled the channel. Unfortunately, they do not.
• I need to determine s there a mic button to temporarily open squelch / monitor. I find being able to do so incredibly reassuring as a quick check before I transmit on a tower. I'd feel pretty stupid if I accidentally announced I am mobile and montiroing over the top of somebodys conversation.

More details to come as I continue to wrap up the installation of this radio and utilize it up and down the west coast. Stay tuned!