Matt replied:

Hi Neil
The answer is yes they can. I put in a Uniden pro 510XL. You dont need to do anything except choose the ariel of your liking and plug it in. No meters needed. Regards Matt

Warwick replied:

Neil (and Matt) i have also to just installed the same Uniden model in my truck, i had no problems with the installation, except that when i turn on my A/C i get a little bit of interference, Has anyone else had this problem? and what would be a viable solution for fixing it??

Robert replied:

Neil,

Apparently if the antenna is not tuned then you run the very real risk of both damaging the radio and affecting the transmitting range.
If you don't want the hassle of getting someone to tune the antenna you can purchase pretuned antenna's that only need's tuning with a SWR meter if you wish to fine tune them and if not checked won't do any damage to the radio or seriously affect the transmitted range. I have one of these pretuned antenna's myself made by MobileOne (available from Dick Smith Electronics), suggest you look at their web site - www.mobileone.com.au or contact them as I did myself, I found them to be very helpful something I didn't find when I tried to get unbiased information from several communication equipment specialist near where I live.

Darryn replied:

To Neil, Matt and Warwick Interferance with 27mhz am radios is a fact of life, ie you probably will never get rid of it all. Best to run antenna coax well away from alternators and a/c compressors and use a length of antenna coax as your power wire straight from the battery. Put the positive to the centre wire and earth to the braid and remove the excess wire fromthe back of the set.
ALL 27mhz antennas need swr checking as installation can affect them esp if you haven't got a good earth on the antenna base.
Regd's Darryn