Winter and it’s crummy weather has been in the air here in southwest Ohio (unless there was a heatwave when this went to post, I scheduled this one in advance).

I’m doing everything wrong, but I know I’m doing everything wrong so I know what to fix.

The first thing I’m doing wrong is a magnet mount.  Mine’s damaging the paint below the magnet.  While my truck is 10 years old, it is damn nice for being 10 years old, and I want it to last at least another 10.  So the first thing I want to do is permanently mount an antenna to the truck.

The second thing I’m doing wrong isn’t really wrong.  I have an FT-1900.  I like it, but it is 2m only.  I really could use 2m+70cm because some of the public service events I do use a 70cm “suitcase” repeater.  Being able to hit that while driving can really help make my life easier.  In addition, my main repeater has a cross-link on 70cm, so being able to monitor the cross-link frequency can be pretty useful to help fix problems.  Having true dual receive would be great if the Skywarn net activates and I want to listen in on it while talking on my ‘normal’ repeater.  Finally, having crossband repeat may sometimes be useful.

A third thing I want to do is start running APRS in my truck.  I don’t know what solution I’m going to do, but I’m not going to do something with a lot of power – I’ll probably re-purpose an old HT to do this.  But when I do that, I will still want an external antenna.  That will also be something I turn on and off (yeah, sometimes I want to make sure I disappear!)

A fourth thing I want to do is run a permanent line for the antenna receptacle in the back of my truck.  That receptacle is for hamsticks.  I may also install my HTX-100 in my truck,

-73-