Thread: fitting UHF in Defender

Hi Jimmy,

where are you mounting the radio?

• overhead console
  • central type
  • windscreen shelf type
• dash centre (depending on Defender model & space availability)
• underslung under the dash
• centre cubby box
• on top of dash

On the TD5 I'd recommend fitting an overhead console - centre type - with cabling running under the roof lining across the windscreen, down the inside of the plastic moulding on the edge of the windscreen and then behind the dash, through a firewall grommet and following the guard to the grille and out to the bull bar.

The previous owner of my Defender drilled a hole in the roof , ran UHF and 27MGHz cables out to roof bar mounted aerials (along with driving light wiring) and sealed the hole. (Both radios mounted on an across windscreen over head console which partially obscures vision, but it's still better than the SIII, and brings the sun visors too low). Personally I wouldn't be drilling the roof, but it does work fine as long as you don't want to remove the roof bar at any time. I wouldn't recommend the across windcreen overhead shelf either due to visibility restrictions, though it is handier than the centre one.

Michael,

Because the UH-011 is not exactly small I'm going to mount it to the back of the cubby box, with the reciever mounted to the side. I'm not to keen on drilling holes, so I think I'll try and push the cables through a grommit in teh firewall and reseal it with some sylicon. The only hard part will be getting it through what seems to be very tight grommits.

Jimmy