Getting Out and About Part II - a 4x4 story

 About a week ago I mentioned that I was going to get a Mitsubishi Triton 4x4. That order is, well, cancelled.

I was given a potential delivery date of April 2024. Then I got a call telling me a few days later that the dealer expects the order to get cancelled. The 2024 models are going into production, they have no idea of the trim levels nor the pricing yet. Great.

I have to admit - when I started down this path, the absolute bench mark for me was set as a Ford Ranger. 

The reality however was, based on the lease companys pricing, that it was listed significantly more expensive for the base model - much less the expensive add ons I need - like a canopy, towing kit, and so on, than for the other options like the Triton.

The Triton by all means was a reasonable vehicle for the money. A long way behind though in terms of current. The little details - the small 8" centre display, the basic dash cluster without a digital speed read out, and so on. Not really a big deal. 

Once it became clear that the order was likely to be cancelled, I did two things. I requested an updated quote on the Ranger. And I had a look at a Ssangyong Musso. I also investigated an LDV T60 Max.

The initial pricing on the LDV and the Ssangyong were both very good and in the ball park with the Triton.. Just with a lot better tech inside them.

The LDV is a Chinese vehicle, which dropped the interest down a couple of points. The tech in them looks good, but lacks Android Auto integration favoring Apple CarPlay only. That dropped the interest down a lot of points.  I'm an Android person, and for a vehicle I'm going to be in and out of every day, I want stuff that just works. It boasts a 2L bi-turbo diesel engine at around 160kw - not dissimilar to the Ford Rangers 2L range though slightly more power.

So, I took a Ssangyong Musso for a drive. Ssangyong are a South Korean company. They've had arrangements over the years with Daimler Benz - and the Musso has some engine tech from Mercedes. The South Koreans have done a lot in the last couple of decades making pretty reasonable looking vehicles. 

Jumping into the drivers seat, I'm greeted with a modern dash cluster. All electronic displays showing me everything. Nice. Comfortable. It even went pretty well. The big centre display though - well, I couldn't read it due to the glare. And it's winter here. Annoying, but not the end of the world. 

By the time I left the dealership, I was reasonably impressed to the point I had plans of putting in an order just as soon as Mitsubishi cancelled the Triton order.

Fast forward a few days, and a spanner was thrown into the works. 

The updated Ford Ranger request came back. Significantly less expensive than the default quote with my requested additions. Significantly closer to what I was going to spend on the Triton. 

So... I pushed the lease company to cancel the Mitsubishi order, and now I'm waiting on the paperwork to get finialised on a new Ford Ranger. Complete with all the tech that a lower model 2023-2024 vehicle should actually have in it. 

In other, more ham related news, I received a Diamond Super Gainer Mini SG-M507 antenna the other day. It cost all of $20. 

Being a little skeptical, I pulled out my trusty little SWR meter for handhelds and the crappy old Baofeng UV-5R that just keeps soldiering on. Jumping between VHF and UHF - in the house, holding it by hand, the worst I saw as 1.3. I guess it should work.  The specs tell me this 74cm antenna has a gain of 2.15dB @ 144MHz and 5.2db @ 430MHz.

On the Falcon I have a Super Gainer SG7200. A 96cm dual bander with a gain of 3.2dB @ 144MHz and 5.7db @ 430MHz. Given that the car isn't exactly large, it does tend to stand out a little too much (though finding it in car parks is a little easier). 

I think I'm likely to swap these around as the Falcon retires into the garage. It won't be doing much out of town work. 

The radio installation looks to be a little more challenging in a Ranger but still achievable. Places for a non-permanent mic holder seem limited, so I might look at tweaking some 3D printable designs for hanging from vents and print in ABS.

The whole radio side of this is a bit frustrating - a lot of people with these vehicles are installing UHF CBs. I'm not interested in CB as a rule. I want an amateur radio instead. I don't particularly care to run two radios in the car when in reality - one could do both jobs - though perhaps not quite as well on the CB side given the antenna not being quite tuned for it.  Certainly the legal side is annoying - as an amateur we're given free reign within reason within our own bands and power limits, yet as licensed amateurs, we're not allowed to put typically better gear on a frequency range used by anyone, using gear of all manner of varying quality - some of which is installed by absolute clowns with no concern for how it works. 

Why on earth amateurs can't be trusted to use their own gear in CB space is beyond me - we're generally capable to getting our heads around the relationship between channels and the associated frequencies. We understand how to configure certain frequencies to use repeaters. And we generally know how to configure radios down to QRP levels to stick within the power limits of those bands. 

At the same time, we've been tested at least on some basic level of understanding of how radios and antennas work, we understand basic safety, appropriate protocols for working on air and so forth. Which is far more than is required for the average CB user these days.

Again - I'm not that interested in CB as some kind of social thing. But if I'm out on a track somewhere it'd be ideal to be able to access some of those channels in an emergency situation or to monitor nearby chatter about conditions. It's something that I might use once in a blue moon. Not something that I care to be using non-stop.