What does this dongle do?

March 5, 2005 7:50 PM

I was just cleaning my new truck, a 2003 Ford F150, and I noted that there is a coaxial cable and what looks like a power cable near the floor in the middle. What does it do?

There's sort of a plastic cowl that is an extension of the dashboard that comes down in the middle of the front, where it sort of meets the hump between seats. There are two wires that were sort of tucked into the cowl. One looks like coaxial cable, the connector is somewhat larger than, say, cable TV. The other cable looks like it could be to power something. There are three holes in the connector.

Could this have been for a CB radio? Would the coax be to hook up to an antenna and the power for, well, power?

posted by RustyBrooks to Travel & Transportation (4 answers total)

Does the coax connector look like any of these?

Does the power connector look like this one.?

If so probably.

Other auto stuff that can use a coax looking cable include ham radio, GPS units, some radio (music) equipment.

Do you know where the other end of the cable goes?
posted by Mitheral at 8:51 PM on March 5, 2005

I'm thinking it's for a CD changer mounted in the center console.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 11:37 PM on March 5, 2005

Response by poster: Mitheral, yeah the power looks just like that and the coax looks similar to some of those. I'll have to do some reading about the CD changer thing. I don't want a changer but it would be nice if I could have an audio input for my mp3 player or laptop.
posted by RustyBrooks at 10:57 AM on March 6, 2005

Response by poster: And no, at the moment I don't know where it goes. When I get a chance I think I can take the lower part of the console off fairly easily and look.
posted by RustyBrooks at 10:59 AM on March 6, 2005