Heat problems with mobile base unit? Yeasu 8800

[xpdishn]

I have moved my base unit from under the drivers seat to a location above the rear wheel well. I am doing this as I will have a 17 gallon water storage tank about 6" away from the under seat position and if a major leak occurs, it would fry my dual band. It will be on the outside of the interior plastic finish panel.
Here is the plastic panel sitting close to position:



And here is the location of the unit:



And a closer look:



The question is: Is this unconditioned space, not cooled by cabin AC, going to get so hot that the unit will suffer? I live in the desert so that side of the rig will be in direct sunlight, very hot direct sunlight.
Has anyone mounted theirs in a similiar position in your rig? Any problems.
It is fully installed right now, but that side will be open for some time as I install a 12v water pump in the same area. I have seen some installed on the headliner but that is such an uncomfortable thing to work with, I just don't want to touch it.

Thanks for any input.

 

[tperkins]

I dont have any advice relevant to experience with your climate, but could it be possible to redirect one of your AC vents into that area? An additional 12V fan might work, but that would cause a lot of RF interference. I beleive Yaesu (at least my FT-7900R) has a max operating temp of 140*F, so in the desert, in sun, It might be close. On the upside, the somewhat sealed location of it's mounting could provide some insulation possibly, and your vehicle is a lighter-ish color. You could try to insulate the area it's located in, but per the manual, it should be mounted in an area with airflow to start. Have you looked at any other mounting locations, especially since you are running the separation kit?

My uneducated .02

 

[xpdishn]

I dont have any advice relevant to experience with your climate, but could it be possible to redirect one of your AC vents into that area? An additional 12V fan might work, but that would cause a lot of RF interference. I beleive Yaesu (at least my FT-7900R) has a max operating temp of 140*F, so in the desert, in sun, It might be close. On the upside, the somewhat sealed location of it's mounting could provide some insulation possibly, and your vehicle is a lighter-ish color. You could try to insulate the area it's located in, but per the manual, it should be mounted in an area with airflow to start. Have you looked at any other mounting locations, especially since you are running the separation kit?

My uneducated .02

Thanks for the input. It got me to think maybe provide some perforations fore and aft of the space to get more air movement behind the bulkhead.

Ahhh, we have a remote temp gauge for our fridge that if I bought another one and put the sending unit next to the radio, I could monitor the temps. For $10 I think I will try that.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[tperkins]

Your welcome, and the temp gauge and perforations sound like a good idea. Another idea I had was that since it provides acces into the fenderwell, you might be able to add some stick on insulation/soundproofing material, and it might help with the area becoming overly hot in the first place. I dont know if this would work for sure, but you might be able to try it for relativley cheap?

 

[1911]

How much do you talk on it? The radio only generates significant heat when transmitting on the higher power levels. If you're a real hobbyist that likes to make contacts on the road and talk a lot, you might need to make some extra cooling provisions. But if you only transmit occasionally it's not going hurt anything being mounted there. Lots of folks put them there.

 

[jjohnsonphx]

I did a similar install in a Jeep Cherokee XJ, in the rear right quarter panel. I installed 2 PC fans (one in the front of the panel and one near the tail light). The front fan pulled air into the quarter panel and the rear pulled air out of the cavity. I wired both fans to a relay and put a switch up on the dash. That way I could turn the fans on at any time. The fans measured about 4 inches. This setup kept a Yeasu FT-90 (35W VHF/UHF) and a Yeasu FT-100 (100W HF, 45W VHF, 35W UHF) cool enough to run year around in Phoenix AZ.