Truck radio installation followup

Well, back in March I made a couple of posts detailing the installation of the dual band mobile ham radio in my new pickup.  As some time has passed, I thought I should follow up on those posts with the latest news.

The mounting products I used turned out to be a complete bust.  The Command foam mounting tape gave up about the first day the truck was parked outside with the temperature over 65 or 70.  The kind-of-Velcro-like stuff I used for the speaker will hold on for an hour or two before that drops onto the floor.  I have not yet decided what my next step will be.  I may have to fabricate a U-mount for the speaker and drill a couple of small holes in the driver side kick panel to mount that.  For the control head, I’m debating still.  Someone makes a really slick no-holes F150 dash mount, but I don’t think it’s worth anywhere near the $40 they want for it ($50 after shipping).  Right now things are “just barely” hanging on, but I’ll need to fix them soon before the speaker cable gets twisted to death.