On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 23:20:22 +0000, Gary S. wrote:

Car stereo places and installers are sometimes a good resource for this
sort of thing, as they need the same type of feedthrough.

Well, just a follow up on this. I gave in and went to the local car stereo
installer and had them do the job. While I was at it, I had them install a
small (3") 12V fan for some extra air flow. I wanted to install the rig in
an enclosed area in the console that was just wide enough for the rig,
about 10" deep and about 8" high. This "pocket" was all plastic -
including the back - however there was nothing behind the pocket under the
dash. The installer cut a small hole for the fan and tied it so that if
the car is on, so is the fan. It's pretty quiet most of the time as well.

Anyhow, the fan moves about 22cf/m of air into this pocket and out the
front right across the heat sink of the radio (the entire bottom of the
rig on the Yaesu 8800). It keeps the rig nice and cool even in pretty
heavy duty cycles at 20W or so. I haven't run the rig "wide open" for any
length of time yet, but I'm willing to bet the rig would still stay pretty
cool.

Thanks for all the input. I'm much happier not having wires running around
the cabin into the cigar lighter. Now that everything is wired, I have the
lighter adapter to use in my wife's car when needed for those short trips.

--
John LeMay
kc2kth
Senior Technical Manager
NJMC | http://www.njmc.com | Phone 732-557-4848
Specializing in Microsoft and Unix based solutions