The 2011 Jeep Patriot at the Iowa Capitol Complex in Des Moines, Iowa, on August 21, 2011.
I officially retired the Impala on July 1 and replaced it with a 2011 Jeep Patriot. The body was starting to show signs of age and wear and trying to keep the black paint looking good was becoming really tiresome. When I started looking for a replacement, I knew a small SUV with 4-wheel drive would be optimal, although I considered getting another Impala for ease of installing radios.
On June 30, 2011 I was able to swing a good deal on leasing a 2011 Patriot. Every dealer I had seen had said the Impala was in exceptional condition, mechanically and in appearance. Even with four NMO mounts drilled (one on the roof and three on the trunk lid) I was able to get $2500 more than KBB value on the trade-in. It’s 4-wheel drive, gets decent MPG for its class, and best of all, the paint isn’t black, so it should be a little easier to take care of than the black Impala was.
I liked the Patriot enough that I chose it even though the radio mounting options are not the best. The shifter seems like kind of a waste of space for what it is. No one makes consoles for the Patriot, apparently.
Overview of the Patriot cabin in parked position. Uniden RH-96 and Icom ID-800H control heads in the dash, with the microphone for the Icom ID-800H on the shifter.
My goals were to keep the install clean and unobtrusive. That was actually an easy goal to reach since there was nowhere to mount the radios in the first place.
I originally mounted the Uniden BCD-996T in the glove compartment and the Icom ID-800H control head under the headliner near the windshield. I moved them because it bothered me to not be able to see the scanner with the glove compartment closed and the Icom ID-800H control head wasn’t very accessible. Both were moved into their current positions in fall 2011.
The main body of the Uniden 996T and the transmitter of the Icom ID-800H are both bolted to the floor under one of the front seats with the cables being run under the door jamb, behind the glove compartment, and into a small hole under the cubby in the dashboard. The control heads are mounted in the dash by industrial-strength hook-and-loop fasteners.
The scanner and radio are accompanied under the seat by a two-channel Motorola Radius M120 VHF radio for APRS. The first channel is set to the national APRS frequency of 144.39, and the second channel is set to the secondary APRS frequency of 144.34 for special events. I use the OpenTracker USB to generate the APRS packets.
The radio and scanner are connected to one Motorola HSN4039 13-watt water-resistant speaker each.
Since it is a leased vehicle, I asked around about others’ experiences in drilling NMO mounts (see RadioReference thread “Drilling holes in a leased vehicle?“). From what I gathered, most said that it really didn’t matter since it will go to auction anyways (if I don’t end up buying the vehicle at the end of the lease). This was affirmed by the fact that all of the appraisers that looked at my Impala with four NMO mounts said that they didn’t really matter and appraised it higher than KBB trade-in value.
Two holes were drilled on the roof in between the luggage rack. I connected the Motorola Radius (APRS) and Icom ID-800H (dual band) each to their own Motorola quarter-wave (from eBay My World – precision-communications-equipment) antenna for 144-152 MHz. Why did I choose VHF quarter-wave antennas? Because they look nice and simple, they’re more flexible, and aren’t very noticeable. Dual-band ham antennas are rarely chrome and if they ever are chrome, they have crazy traps and coils that, in my opinion, are ugly. If I go any taller than that antenna, I’ll be scraping the beams in the parking ramp at work.
For the Uniden 996T scanner, I’m using a Laird B8065CN 806-866 MHz 5dB no ground plane antenna and it has spectacular performance on all bands except VHF. Most of my scanning activity are 700/800 MHz trunked systems so this works exceptionally well. The antenna was mounted on the driver’s side fender to avoid overload/desense issues from the other radios.
A closer view of the Laird SBH3400 Dodge Ram bracket on the driver's side fender of the Patriot.
Since the Patriot does not have a traditional hood/fender shape, a typical 90-degree fender mount wouldn’t work. I found a thread on JeepPatriot.com in which they used a Dodge Ram fender mount to accommodate the unusual shape. I used a Laird SBH3400 bracket for the mount, and it works fine. I was concerned about rubbing against the paint, but so far it doesn’t appear to be causing any issues.
Right now, this definitely meets my needs and there’s really no reason for me to add any equipment or rearrange.
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