Thread: GME UHF Install - Power & Earthing

Hi AULRO brains trust,

Trying to be brave and having a crack at installing a GME UHF myself. Located Antenna on passenger side bonnet, with bracket from labtronx, fed coax and power through engine bay and intro footwell through driver side grommet - happy with that. Final task is to connect up to power. As per pics below, I'm running a redarc BCDC1225 dual battery - and will take power direct from aux battery, will use an 2amp inline blade fuse close to battery.

Had a couple of questions;
- the radio manual itself says connect negative up to negative battery terminal. Almost everything I've read outside of that suggests using a chassis earth. There is a chassis earth next to the aux battery that has multiple negative earth eye terminals already connected - would the recommendation be to connect negative battery wire to negative aux battery terminal, or would a chassis earth be better? and if a chassis earth is better - are there any closer to where the driver-side grommet comes out?

- As per pic, I've run coax, and will likely run power cable through conduit over top of engine bay, cabled tied down, around the back of start battery box - it's neat enough but wondered, do engine bay temps have potential to damage any of these wires? (coax and power will sit within a basic plastic conduit tube).

- Reading that power cables have potential to cause interference with coax signal if run too close together. In practice, has anyone seen this? (I'd like to run my radio power cable and coax in same conduit/route but wondered how significant interference could be)

- In order of connecting power, is the assumption that I'd bolt down the negative cable, either to chassis earth or negative terminal first, and then connect positive? Is there any order to this, or "watchouts"?

- Finally, I saw a few posts mentioning to watch out for flying clips when removing driver side footwell panel. I heard my clip fly off, but I can't find it, don't know what it looks like, or where it re-attaches to if I did find it! Is anyone able to share a photo, or where it fits?

Thanks - and go easy (first time auto-elec not that comfortable doing this kind of stuff - but want to learn)

Christhumbnail_IMG_1773.jpgthumbnail_IMG_1774.jpgthumbnail_IMG_1775.jpgthumbnail_IMG_1777.jpg

I wired mine to the aux battery, a Traxide setup.

Short version:
Bring a "main" positive line to a terminal box under the driver's dash, behind that panel.
Something that will give you about 6 fused connectors with an earth rail you can connect to the chassis. (There's a good point behind the kick panel next to the accelerator).
Then you can wire your CB to that terminal box.
You'll have spares for whatever else you may want in the future.
e.g. dashcam, or permanent power to a cig socket on the console

Longer version:
Permanent power from Traxide back to accessories and dash - design?