Midland MXT575 Hidden Install how-to

What's wrong with everyone? I'm Matt with Ozark Overland Adventures and I'm very excited to show off what's new at the time of this recording that hasn't been officially released yet. Midland

mxt575

gmrs radio, this is it, um, if you are familiar with the channel. you know, I recently

install

ed and reviewed the mxt500, well this is basically the same radio, um, here's the 500, here you can see they're about the same size, about the same thickness, you know. The same everywhere with the exception of one very important piece that has made the MXD575 one of the most anticipated radios to hit the market and that is the front of the MXT 500, as you can see all the controls. screen and everything is actually on the radio head unit for the 575, all the controls are on the microphone and honestly they are pretty much the same radio, both are 50 watts, both have 15 channels, seven of which are compatible . lower power frs radios both have repeater channel access both have usbc ports rated at 36 watts so you know you can use this port to keep a laptop charged or use a laptop on the go anything that requires you to know a higher power usb you have that option here both have noaa weather channels both can do privacy channels both can do wideband and narrowband channel output and I've been using the 500 for a while. on some trips and it's absolutely fantastic, but the key thing about the 575 and the controls that are on the microphone is that you can hide this part and I showed in one of my videos how we hid my wife's mxt 275, which is The same controls are on the microphone, but it is a 15 watt radio.

I hid it in her Wrangler and I got a lot of questions from people asking how I did that, which is why I'm not in this video. Going over all the details of the 575 because I've pretty much already done it with a 500, but in this video I'm going to show you how I stealthily

install

the new 575 on my gladiator and just to help you out. Look, it's actually very easy. There is a small modification I have to make to my center console to allow for the extension I have for the cat5 cable here, but other than that it's very painless and not difficult. everything, so let's get started with the installation Ozark Overland Adventures is supported by the Moore Expo, the Midwest's number one adventure travel consumer expo, Artemis Overland Hardware.

They have one of the largest selections of landing gear available. Great iron Overland rally where Overland exhibition meets music. long creek overland festival your source for ozark overland adventure products and more inland texas rvs best place for overland adventure trailers and moon shade portable awning manufacturers now the first step is determining where you want the base to go and on a wrangler and a gladiator, if you remove this piece of plastic here, it takes a little bit of force, but it comes off right away if you remove that piece. There's a great place under here for the base unit.

Now I have a friend. One of mine used this on a tacoma and actually found room in his glove compartment. I can't speak for other vehicles and where the proper mounting locations are, but I do know that on a third generation Tacoma the glove box worked very well. a friend of mine and at wranglers and gladiators just below here is a great place. I know a few people who have mounted them on the center console, so there are multiple options. Now I'm cheating a little on this since I'm running Midland. radios for years um, I already have the power cable installed.

I already have the antenna cable. I also use an external speaker because when I'm on the road I like to have the windows closed, it gets a little loud sometimes. So I like to have a good speaker and my external speaker is already mounted there so all of that is already done on my gladiator but I'll walk you through and show you where it goes but it's super easy because on a wrangler and I can't speak for others vehicles right down there there's a pass through the firewall and these are actually my power cables here they go through the firewall my center and ghost antenna here they run here under the hood here uh, I think there's one of those right there, no, there's my antenna cable, it falls here and goes through the firewall as well, so it's very easy to connect the antenna or the power, it's very easy to run those cables. and place them here where you need them and now that I know where the radio base unit is going to go, I have to figure out where my microphone is going to be mounted and actually there is a nice dead space back here where you can this is where my mxt 500 was previously mounted since it can't be

hidden

, but what I'm actually going to do is just cover up one of these little holes.

I'm going to cut that section right there and run my cat5 extension so I can plug the radio in there and hide that mark. Another option would be to maybe do it in this area here, but I can't get my fingers in there. Very good, you know, to help execute. the cable and stuff, so I'm going to leave it here because I think it's a really good place to extend the cat5 cable. I have this little two meter cat5 extension cable that I just bought on Amazon, uh, two meters, maybe too. long, but I didn't want to take the risk that one meter was potentially too short and I would only have to do this once, so I went ahead and got two meters, it's what I used on Kara's Wrangler, it's working great, so , but this is it, it has, you know, this part that connects to the base of the

midland

and then it has this little square piece here that has the spikes on it and you just cut your place on the board and put it on and I want to make sure you don't I accidentally made the hole too big so here goes nothing so I just took a silver marker and pulled out a little box that I knew was going to be a little bit smaller than the port in there and I'm going to take my dremel with a wheel cutting and cutting it slowly hmm so I suspect it will be too small which is good but I just want to check it and oh yeah definitely too small which is good now.

I'm going to slowly start making it bigger until it's the right size. Yes, I'm cutting a little more at a time because you can always keep cutting more, but you can't add it back if you cut too much. There it goes, let's go, eh, okay, I think it looks really good, what do you think? I think it looks really good, so now all I have to do is take the cable, put it through this little gap here and then out the other side and that will take it to where I need it to be and you won't be able to see anything and that just hides underneath, you can't see it anymore, there we go and then this hides underneath and then you go back there and that hides it and then you lower it well so that it's long enough to be able to reach the radio that's up there and , in fact, let me go ahead and run it through there, that's where it's going to come out and plug it into the radio right there and I already have the power cord so I'm going to pull them out, let me pull that there's my antenna, there's the power cord. my antenna let's do a test so connect the antenna go ahead and connect my external speaker that goes there then connect my power cable that goes there everything good so let's do a test with the radio just plug it in directly and make sure it turns on.

Perfect sound came out of my external speaker. That's good, now let's connect this my extension and let's connect the radio there, okay, let's connect that there, let's see perfect, it works great. Now I can put my radio there and if I choose not to have this visible, I can take it. Hide it in the center console or glove box and no one will know there's a nice

midland

mxt 575 in here, so now just to remove the base unit to mount this here, I'm just going to use some industrial strength velcro to secure it that way. way, if I ever need to take it out, I can put it there at the bottom, so what I'm going to do is there's not enough width here to slide it in. the front is on the 275 but not the 575 so I'm going to bring it in from the back and put the sticky side of the velcro there and then send it up from the back to where it is.

I'm going to rest on the top of this plate here if you can see it really well because of the light there, but there's a really nice flat spot on top of that plate and that's where it's going to go, make sure it doesn't accidentally stick. the velcro on something before it stands up there, come on, it makes perfect bingo, okay, I don't know if you can see there, it's mounted there, up there, out of the way, sorry for the shaky camera, but that's nice. and secure it and don't go anywhere, take the extension cord, run it up, there we go, there it goes, bingo, I've got it now, I just have to hide the cords, tuck them behind the floor mat and put them back my piece and it will be Okay, everything is

hidden

, let me take our piece here and put it back in place.

I know some people are going to ask about the USB port and that it has now become useless. Actually, no, it's not because I can do it very easily. Get to it and I'm going to look for a USB extension cable to run through my dash as well, so if I need to plug something into that USB port, I'll be able to do that very easily, now let's plug this in. there, perfect, okay, it's really that simple, it took me an hour and that included filming and you know, cleaning up after me too, so I think it's going to work great.

I'm very excited to be able to do it. hide that in case you know maybe I'm parked somewhere where I think someone might see that and say oh it would be nice to have that along with all the other stuff on the gladiator, but I think it's going to be awesome so let me. know in the comments what you think, you know, do you like the 575 over the 500 with the controls on the microphone? Are you going to hide it like I did? This is for the 575 and 275 so that both radios can be hidden like this. If you have a different vehicle other than a Wrangler or Gladiator, put in the comments where you found the best place to hide the base unit.

Let us know if you would like to see the video and subscribe to the channel if you wish. We still have a ton of cool stuff coming up, more gear reviews and how to's, some awesome trips, speaking of trips, the big iron overland rally the second weekend in June is in Mineral Springs, Kansas at the Big Museum Brutus. I went there last year, that was the The first year was a lot of fun, I mean, a lot of fun, it was so calm and relaxed, yeah, it's a land rally and a music festival, um, it's going to be amazing, I'll probably be there teaching a boy a GPS class and just. just hanging out and listening to good music, there will be some vendors there, you know, showing off some of the latest stuff, but it's a big weekend, so the second weekend in June.

The big iron overland rally link is in the description. The coupon code is also in the description, so if you want discounts on your tickets, check out the coupon code and I hope to see you there. I'll also be at expo west later in May, so if you're at expo west and see me, come say hello. I'll be in Gaia's GPS booth. I'll be teaching classes, one on route planning, one on sort of an introduction to the Ozarks, so if you're at shows, come say hi and if you like what we're on. doing and I want to support the channel in a very tangible way, check out our Patreon link in the description below, but we love our Patreon supporters.

I share all my GPS data with them and if you are interested in Ozark Overland Avengers merchandise. Go to longcreekoverland.com. See you next time. Bye bye.