Who's got the best Cell phone and Mount??

Permanent Car Phone

I opted for a more powerful, longer range permanent car phone - Motorola 4500 Car Phone - ($100 installed at Alltel) over a handheld cell phone. The disadvantage is that you can't take it with you when you leave the car. The advantage is much greater range and coverage (especially compared to a digital cell phone). Even though some of our travels have taken us to remote areas far from major towns and highways, we are almost never completely out of range. The larger antenna and 3 watts vs. 1/30th watt power makes a big difference especially in remote areas where a phone might be most important. What good is an emergency phone if you can only call for help when you are in a city or on a Interstate. Twenty miles up a back country dirt road at night is when I want my phone to be available. Also the larger speaker and permanently installed microphone allow all passengers to talk and hear clearly even at highway speed. I'm very happy with this choice. DETAIL & PICTURES

Meep Meep

I went with the best of both worlds. I have the Motorola V series 60c phone ( http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bi...609&prmenbr=126&phone_cgrfnbr=1&zipcode=27713 ) and I had the professional hands free kit installed in my 'DX. ( http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bi...ipcode=&phoneID=&search_string=28&type=217953 ). It works like a charm. There is a hands free mic mounted just above the rear-view. There is a speaker hidden away behind the center console of the dash. The system automatically lowers the radio volume when activated. Plus there's a window mount low profile antenna that gives me 3 full watts of power identical to the permanent installed phones. When I get in the the car, I drop the phone in the cradle and it begins to rapid charge the battery. The phone automatically rings over it's own speaker. The beauty of it is that I take my phat phone with me whe I get out.

The install job was very nice. I will post pics as soon as I get home from this business trip.

CCM NAVIGATOR-STAR TAC

MDXtrous,

I have the CCM as well for my Star Tac. I plan to use it on my X when it arrives (hopefully two weeks and counting).

I have been using it on my Accord Coupe. I did not use the external mike because I could not figure out an acceptable way to wire it in. With out the mike I need to speak rather loudly. The speaker feature however works great.

I was psyched reading your thread and wondered if you could post some pics?

Are you using the extension that came with the CCM?

Any details on how you wired the mike would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

P.S. I will post how mine works once I get Xed.

I had a hands free kit installed for my Nokia 8260. They hooked it so it always has power. The microphone is above the driver's window to the left and the antenna is mounted on the right hand inside corner of the front windshield. I went with this mount because I wanted the 'phone closer than the other mounts would allow.



Rail

Rail,
That's a very nice setup. How much did it cost you?

wpf,
As promised attached are the pics of my CCM FM Navigator.

You can see that there is a button with 88.3 on the lower part of the mount. When it's depressed the audio comes out of the built in speakerphone. When it's pressed, I tune to 88.3 (programmed as a preset station on my radio) and the audio can be heard through the speakers. It's very clear.

I wired the microphone alone the ridge on the lower part of the dash.

towards the steering wheel

Note that I just use good old electrical tape. I finally mount the microphone behind the steering wheel. I find it to be a very natural location for me to speak into. I've tested the microphone even for the passengers in the 2nd row, and the voice does get picked up also.

This was a pretty good solution for $54.00

As you can tell from the pics, the reason I liked this solution was it kept things pretty clutter free with no real "long" hanging telephone cords.

Cellport

I just read an article on the Mobile Entertainment magazine and they had a good review on the Cellport Voice Command 3000. Everything is voice activated. They really liked it and said it worked well. Looks clutter free also, and I don't think you can beat it in terms of safety.

You can find it at:

www.cellport.com

It's on the pricey side at $279, but may be good for people that use their phones a lot on the road.