TL;DR - This is a great radio, and is highly recommended.
Now for the details:
Setup -
Radio: This was a huge pain in the butt, but I blame the make and model of my vehicle for being difficult. I have a 2017 Ford Fusion. I had to puncture the grommet in the firewall from the passenger side, and on the inside of the vehicle, I had to disassemble the passenger side vent assembly and remove the glove box. Then, using a curved metal coat hanger, I fed it through the punctured grommet in the firewall, around the center vent mechanism (and avoiding the passenger side airbag deployment mechanism), and once that coat hanger was completely through, I firmly duct taped the ends of the power cables for the radio, and covered up the fuse with the duct tape. Then, using a lubricant, I coated the now duct-tape covered cords, and SLOWLY pulled them through the grommet and popped them on the other side. I fed a little more cable than was necessary to reach the battery.
Once the cables were all the way through, I cut off the duct tape and cleaned the cables, then I proceeded to crimp O-ring connectors onto the cables. Red cord went to the positive terminal of the battery, on the bolt sticking up from it, and the black cord to the negative ground chassis (DO NOT connect the black back to the battery directly!) I removed the nuts from the battery and chassis ground (each of those took a DIFFERENT EXTENDED wrench mechanism, had to make TWO trips to the hardware store!) Then I used 1/2" convoluted tubing (rated for high heat resistance) to protect the wires.
On the radio side, there was a cubby right beneath my dash stereo panel which fit this GMRS radio awesome, but I opted to use adhesive instead of screwing things in. This does not work well in high heat, so I had to fix it. It's heavy, and I needed a gap for the speakers. Since I don't have a speaker box to connect to the radio (any recommendations?), I left the head connected to the radio. The handset is heavy, and I wasn't able to reliably use adhesive to mount the handset holder, so, it sits loose in the console for now. Not a huge deal, but I think there's a better option. I'd rather not screw holes into my dash.
Antenna: Midland MicroMobile MXTA26 6dB Gain Whip Antenna with an MXTA12 Mag Mount. This antenna comes with a LONG cable, and I chose to mount it on top of the middle of my car. The roof is metal, and the mag mount works very well with it. Huge ground plane, too. I fed the cable down the groove of the side of the rear wind shield, and into the trunk. The weather stripping isn't damaging the cable at all, and I'm not worried about pinching it. I used some small carabiners to keep the cord from being loose in the trunk. I fed it through the back seat on the passenger side, went down to the floor and underneath the mat, and guided the cable with some adhesive cable organizers to keep it from being pinched from the moving seat. Fed the antenna cable into the back of the radio along with the power source, cable managed with some velcro straps.
This entire install took me longer than I thought, about 4+ hours due to having to figure out how to install things as I went along. Hopefully my experiences will help others.
Use -
First, I always remember to power my radio off after I turn off my car. It's directly fed through the battery, so no mechanical switch or feeding through the fuse box. However, there's a safety setting on the Wouxun KG1000G+ that you can turn on which monitors a below-recommended-voltage to disable the radio to prevent excess battery drain. I'm not too worried.
However, when I power up the radio, Sometimes I see the screen showing excess of 14+ volts. This is a tad concerning, but so far hasn't really been a problem. If I see it shoot past 16 volts, I'm sure the fuse would be tripped.
Signal quality varies. Channels 1-7 are very range dependent. Channels 8-14 I can listen to, but not talk to, so that's not really that important. Channels 15-22 (and the repeater channels) sound amazing -- AS LONG AS I HAVE A CLEAR LINE OF SIGHT. If I'm going through valleys, walls, buildings, or lots of tall trees, the signal will "flutter." On the highway, I've been able to keep in touch with repeaters up to 60+ miles away. (I do not recommend the MXTA25 stubby antenna. It's design is not good for use when mobile and you're trying to reach distant repeaters. As an offroader antenna, though, it would be fine, so I keep it as a backup option). In most scenarios, however, signals are solid and reliable. The fans do kick in when transmitting, and while the noise is audible, I feel that it isn't a problem.
Other thoughts -
I also have a CB radio and a Ham radio sharing roof space with my other antennas. My colleague has nicknamed my car "the porcupine." Haha. The 70cm/2m Ham radio antenna does not interfere with the GMRS Wouxun radio at all, either transmit or receive. The CB radio, however, does NOT like it when I transmit from the GMRS radio, so I need to turn the CB off, first. Again, the Ham radio is unaffected.
There's a lot of programmability when it comes to the Wouxun radio. I'd recommend getting a dirt cheap laptop purely for running radio software so that you can program it in the car, otherwise you'll be using the handset to program. The most annoying thing when programming a channel, though, is naming it. There's no "backspace." You make a mistake, you have to hit the # button to cycle through the letter options again so you can choose another letter. Programming channel names into this thing from the handset is awful.
I really want a better speaker for this radio. The sound is okay, but I have to turn off almost everything else to hear it. I'm worried about cranking up the volume too high or blowing out the internal speakers. I do notice a slight audio level loss when doing dual-monitoring.
It's also stupid that you can't program the radio name from the handset -- you need the PC and the software to do it. Not willing to buy a internal power supply to temporarily work on my radio in my PC at home. Just get a cheap laptop to bring to the car. (Seriously, you can get a laptop for $80.)
It would also be nice to be able to program this thing from a smartphone, iPhone, Android, whatever. Give it Bluetooth or something. A $480 radio should at least be able to do that.
My final thoughts:
Installation: Varies. My experience: 4/10. My car was just not built to have a radio installed. Perhaps a Jeep or another kind of truck would be better. Don't take my personal review as a reason to not buy this radio.
Radio quality: 8/10. Does not like hot weather. Let the fans run for a bit if the inside of your car is hot. The chassis is VERY solid, but the handset is so-so. Nice to have a removable face plate, though I haven't used that feature, yet.
Ease of use: 6/10. For most basic functionality, it's fine, but adjusting settings has a bit of a learning curve.
Audio quality: 7/10. Could definitely be louder. I'd love to do an external speaker and mount the radio elsewhere in the car and free up space. Handset speaker is subpar.
On some rare occasions, I've heard random fluttering-buzzing on my ham radio and GMRS radio. Not sure where that comes from, but it seems to happen on only one channel. It goes away on its own. Might be some punk kid, or some lid. I dunno.
Is this radio worth the investment? Absolutely. Performs admirably. Static, however, is inevitable depending on your location. As the great Queen of all that is GMRS once said, "Your FARS may vary."
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Question
Sonicgott
TL;DR - This is a great radio, and is highly recommended.
Now for the details:
Setup -
Radio: This was a huge pain in the butt, but I blame the make and model of my vehicle for being difficult. I have a 2017 Ford Fusion. I had to puncture the grommet in the firewall from the passenger side, and on the inside of the vehicle, I had to disassemble the passenger side vent assembly and remove the glove box. Then, using a curved metal coat hanger, I fed it through the punctured grommet in the firewall, around the center vent mechanism (and avoiding the passenger side airbag deployment mechanism), and once that coat hanger was completely through, I firmly duct taped the ends of the power cables for the radio, and covered up the fuse with the duct tape. Then, using a lubricant, I coated the now duct-tape covered cords, and SLOWLY pulled them through the grommet and popped them on the other side. I fed a little more cable than was necessary to reach the battery.
Once the cables were all the way through, I cut off the duct tape and cleaned the cables, then I proceeded to crimp O-ring connectors onto the cables. Red cord went to the positive terminal of the battery, on the bolt sticking up from it, and the black cord to the negative ground chassis (DO NOT connect the black back to the battery directly!) I removed the nuts from the battery and chassis ground (each of those took a DIFFERENT EXTENDED wrench mechanism, had to make TWO trips to the hardware store!) Then I used 1/2" convoluted tubing (rated for high heat resistance) to protect the wires.
On the radio side, there was a cubby right beneath my dash stereo panel which fit this GMRS radio awesome, but I opted to use adhesive instead of screwing things in. This does not work well in high heat, so I had to fix it. It's heavy, and I needed a gap for the speakers. Since I don't have a speaker box to connect to the radio (any recommendations?), I left the head connected to the radio. The handset is heavy, and I wasn't able to reliably use adhesive to mount the handset holder, so, it sits loose in the console for now. Not a huge deal, but I think there's a better option. I'd rather not screw holes into my dash.
Antenna: Midland MicroMobile MXTA26 6dB Gain Whip Antenna with an MXTA12 Mag Mount. This antenna comes with a LONG cable, and I chose to mount it on top of the middle of my car. The roof is metal, and the mag mount works very well with it. Huge ground plane, too. I fed the cable down the groove of the side of the rear wind shield, and into the trunk. The weather stripping isn't damaging the cable at all, and I'm not worried about pinching it. I used some small carabiners to keep the cord from being loose in the trunk. I fed it through the back seat on the passenger side, went down to the floor and underneath the mat, and guided the cable with some adhesive cable organizers to keep it from being pinched from the moving seat. Fed the antenna cable into the back of the radio along with the power source, cable managed with some velcro straps.
This entire install took me longer than I thought, about 4+ hours due to having to figure out how to install things as I went along. Hopefully my experiences will help others.
Use -
First, I always remember to power my radio off after I turn off my car. It's directly fed through the battery, so no mechanical switch or feeding through the fuse box. However, there's a safety setting on the Wouxun KG1000G+ that you can turn on which monitors a below-recommended-voltage to disable the radio to prevent excess battery drain. I'm not too worried.
However, when I power up the radio, Sometimes I see the screen showing excess of 14+ volts. This is a tad concerning, but so far hasn't really been a problem. If I see it shoot past 16 volts, I'm sure the fuse would be tripped.
Signal quality varies. Channels 1-7 are very range dependent. Channels 8-14 I can listen to, but not talk to, so that's not really that important. Channels 15-22 (and the repeater channels) sound amazing -- AS LONG AS I HAVE A CLEAR LINE OF SIGHT. If I'm going through valleys, walls, buildings, or lots of tall trees, the signal will "flutter." On the highway, I've been able to keep in touch with repeaters up to 60+ miles away. (I do not recommend the MXTA25 stubby antenna. It's design is not good for use when mobile and you're trying to reach distant repeaters. As an offroader antenna, though, it would be fine, so I keep it as a backup option). In most scenarios, however, signals are solid and reliable. The fans do kick in when transmitting, and while the noise is audible, I feel that it isn't a problem.
Other thoughts -
I also have a CB radio and a Ham radio sharing roof space with my other antennas. My colleague has nicknamed my car "the porcupine." Haha. The 70cm/2m Ham radio antenna does not interfere with the GMRS Wouxun radio at all, either transmit or receive. The CB radio, however, does NOT like it when I transmit from the GMRS radio, so I need to turn the CB off, first. Again, the Ham radio is unaffected.
There's a lot of programmability when it comes to the Wouxun radio. I'd recommend getting a dirt cheap laptop purely for running radio software so that you can program it in the car, otherwise you'll be using the handset to program. The most annoying thing when programming a channel, though, is naming it. There's no "backspace." You make a mistake, you have to hit the # button to cycle through the letter options again so you can choose another letter. Programming channel names into this thing from the handset is awful.
I really want a better speaker for this radio. The sound is okay, but I have to turn off almost everything else to hear it. I'm worried about cranking up the volume too high or blowing out the internal speakers. I do notice a slight audio level loss when doing dual-monitoring.
It's also stupid that you can't program the radio name from the handset -- you need the PC and the software to do it. Not willing to buy a internal power supply to temporarily work on my radio in my PC at home. Just get a cheap laptop to bring to the car. (Seriously, you can get a laptop for $80.)
It would also be nice to be able to program this thing from a smartphone, iPhone, Android, whatever. Give it Bluetooth or something. A $480 radio should at least be able to do that.
My final thoughts:
Installation: Varies. My experience: 4/10. My car was just not built to have a radio installed. Perhaps a Jeep or another kind of truck would be better. Don't take my personal review as a reason to not buy this radio.
Radio quality: 8/10. Does not like hot weather. Let the fans run for a bit if the inside of your car is hot. The chassis is VERY solid, but the handset is so-so. Nice to have a removable face plate, though I haven't used that feature, yet.
Ease of use: 6/10. For most basic functionality, it's fine, but adjusting settings has a bit of a learning curve.
Audio quality: 7/10. Could definitely be louder. I'd love to do an external speaker and mount the radio elsewhere in the car and free up space. Handset speaker is subpar.
On some rare occasions, I've heard random fluttering-buzzing on my ham radio and GMRS radio. Not sure where that comes from, but it seems to happen on only one channel. It goes away on its own. Might be some punk kid, or some lid. I dunno.
Is this radio worth the investment? Absolutely. Performs admirably. Static, however, is inevitable depending on your location. As the great Queen of all that is GMRS once said, "Your FARS may vary."
Thanks, guys.
WSCL244/KF0QNM
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