DGPS Beacon Receiver installed.
First, made a custom bracket which bolted up to the body of the Cruiser just under the hood and in front of the radiator. One bolt was existing as a mount of some sort, and the other was for one of the two horns the 100 has. That bracket was twisted and shaped to bring about the angles I wanted and needed to fit through the plastic grill on the front of the Cruiser.
Once bent, cut, drilled etc, I primered and painted it black. Then I mounted it directly to the Cruiser via the two bolts just spoken of. Once in place, I mounted the beacon receiver to the bracket with two large hose clamps. I had already fabricated a holder to put the beacon receiver into out of PVC pipe, and wrapped it all good in electrical tape. Once mounted with the hose clamps, I covered those with more black electrical tape.
I zip tied the cable to the bracket, and then proceded to route the data line for the beacon. I zip tied it across the inside of the grill in about 4 places, then ran along the inner fender wall on the driver side. I then punctured a very small hole into the rubber boot which a large wiring harness was feeding through the firewall into the cab. I fed what I needed inside under the cluster guages, and neatly zip tied up the rest inside the engine bay off to the drivers side. I then added some silicon to the area where I fed the cable through the boot, even though it was a very tight fit.
Inside I had already tapped into the +12V from the AHC fuse point on my drivers side fuse block, and ran my negative to a convenient point on the body in the drivers side foot box. Now, I took the wiring apart to my GPS, added a toggle switch to toggle the Beacon on and off separate of the GPS itself, and soldered up my DGPS signal wires. My GPS is a Lowrance unit, and the DGPS is an Eagle unit, so they are totally compatable (Lowrance makes Eagle). After I got all the soldering done, heat shrinked the connections etc, I tucked it all up nice and neat with more zip ties, and turned on the Cruiser. GPS powered up, light working..... Toggle DGPS Beacon and read a 30dB gain from my antenna. DGPS is working, just no signal correction as I am too far away from the nearest transmitter in Aransas Pass, Tx.
After picking up my tools, soldering station etc, I head down to the local truck stop and pick up a small spring mount to attach to the Beacon, and then attach the antenna to give it even more flexibility. The Beacon bracket I designed flexes and moves a bit to allow it to take up the jolts and off road movement of the Cruiser.
Tomorrow Friday I will take some pictures and try to post them up here to show the whole process.
