VHF Radio Question

[Michael Wagner]

Just a question for my own peace of mind, I have an 18' Crestliner, walk through open bow and just bought a VHF marine radio since I have been fishing the Saginaw bay quite a bit lately and figured it was a worthy investment. The book says to mount the antenna at least 3' from the radio, but it also says to keep the coaxial and power wires as short as possible, the logical place to mount the radio is under my dash and the antenna on the gunnel outside the windshield to keep it out of harms way, 18" apart at best. I have enough coaxial cable to mount it up front but it would not be out of the way. I was wondering from some with far more experience than I, what is the reasoning behind "at least 3' from the radio" I dont want to start drilling holes in my boat and mounting things that wont work or will get knocked off accidently. Thanks, Mike

[FIJI]

but Ive heard that too

Lets take her out on the bay and discuss !!:evil:

[mcanes1]

Mike, I bought my boat new, and had them install all my electronics. My antenna is within 2' of my radio and I don't have any problems with it.

[tinmarine]

I'm guessing it's a dual console? My old man mounted his under the port side console and the antenna on the port side gunnel roughly 2' from one another. His batteries are in the aft of the boat (I'm assuming yours are also) so the cables are long. The most important thing to remember is not to have coils of coax bundled up. It'll mess up the signal. Just have enough to do the job and use quality wires. I will say that mine has a much better quality than his and mine is farther apart. His you really have to mess with the squelch and you still get quite a bit of noise, where as mine you don't know it's on unless someone talks, and you can hear them much better and clearer. We both have unidens.

[Capnhook]

Mine too Mike. It's mounted 18" from my radio, and it works great. Wish I could give you some more insight, but I don't know shat from shinola about electronics, but it works just fine. Capnhook

[bigcountrysg]

I would not mount the radio any closer then 36 inches to the antenna. The problem is if you are to close you get interferance with the radio. Which when you talk you will get a squeal. Simple solution is to mount the antenna on the oppisite side of the boat from the radio. So if you have the radio at the helm. But the antenna on left side or portside of the boat.

If you mount the radio at the navigators seat then mount the antenna on the starboard side ( right side). This still will keep the coax short and keep the antenna 3ft or more from the radio.

When they say to keep the coax as short as possible. They mean don't run the coax all the way up to the bow and around to the antenna. Or all the way to the abft of the boat around to the antenna. Have the coax run in a straight line from the radio to the antenna. This will keep the coax as short as possible.

The people that have the radio 18 inches or less from the antenna. Sure it works but the reason why it is installed there is you had a lazy person doing the work. Does it work yes. Is it right no.

[roger23]

mine is 18" from the antenna had it 5 years that way ,,never a problem,,,,only static I get is a bunch of motor mouths from time to time :yikes:

[john warren]

their talking ideal,, practicly it might not fit on your boat like that. if you can mount the radio on one side of the boat and the antenna on the other.
more critical is heigth of the antenna. i run an 8 foot mast on mine. vhf is line of site, so the higher it is the further it will transmit. also you will have two power settings, use the low power. the high is only for when lives are on the line. otherwise people from a long way away are listening to you for no reason. and others that are closer are getting walked on.
learn the proper radio procedures. listen to the emergency channel at all times , and only use it to contact others, then immediatly move to a working channel.

[Michael Wagner]

Thanks Guys, Thats why I love this site, gotta a problem-post a question and ya got allota answers :evil: Thanks again, Mike

[ih772]

The reason they say to mount the antenna at least three feet away is to keep RF from the antenna from getting back into the radio and causing problems. What happens is the RF causes all sorts of distortion to to the signal making it difficult or impossible to understand what you are saying. Some radios are have better shielding to keep RF out and that's why they will work with antennas mounted closer.

The reason they say to keep your coax as short as possible is to keep the losses in the coax to a minimum. However you don't really have to worry about coax losses in the "short" lengths of coax that come with the antennas....just plug and play. If your coax started getting close to 100' feet long, then you could have enough of a loss to impact your signal.

[mcanes1]

Thanks Guys, Thats why I love this site, gotta a problem-post a question and ya got allota answers :evil: Thanks again, Mike

So, what did you do?

[Michael Wagner]

So, what did you do?


I fixed it :lol::lol::lol: The best I could get without running wire all over the boat (or pulling up the floor :yikes:) was get the radio and antenna just less than 30" apart, It`ll have to do, I have`nt hooked the wires up yet I gotta run down to town to get some wire connectors. Mike