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Can someone steer me in the right direction, I can only make contact when I am within sight distance. Is it the type of antenna or a crappy radio? How far out should be able to contact another boat?
are the Db's important? Any help is very welcome. Thanks Geary
make sure you have good soldered ends on it. Just had a buddy have about same issue. Marina had put the crimp on ends. Replaced with soldered ends, all good
How old or how long has it been in service? How tall is it? Can you receive the weather stations? If you can receive the weather stations then you are most likely transmitting with no or at best a very weak signal which is usually an indication that you have a poor connection. Just as SPOONFEEDER states if the connections are not soldered they will corrode and you will lose your ground.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bggeary
The height of you antenna above the water will determine how far you will be able to broadcast/transmit, you may be able to receive signals from afar but you will not be able to transmit that far due to the line of sight from your antenna to the horizon which is determined by the height of your antenna. The VHF radio signal is basically a straight, line of sight signal and cannot transmit beyond the horizon due to the curvature of the earth falling away from the straight line your signal is transmitting.
Don't know how old the radio is, came with the boat,5 years now. My son replaced the antenna last year as the led broke. I think he soldered them. The antenna is a shakesphere and I think it's 8 ft. I was told Db's have something to do with concentrated signal direction or something???
Also heard that the longer the cable causes reduction in power??
Make sure the radio is not in 1 watt low power. If in high power it is the connections . Take them apart clean and resolder.
Most reputable antennas are furnish with the length of cable they will function with properly , if there has been an extension cable placed into the equation then the quality of the transmission is affected. Using the shortest possible amount of cable is best so long as you leave a few extra inches or even feet for the changing of connectors. Do not coil any excess cable as it causes problems(can't think of the proper word) with the overall performance of the system.
Thanks for the feedback fellas!
dbs do effect the performance how ever condition of cable and connection are biggest factors. I just replaced my 16yr old antenna the coax was cracked you could see the shield wire. The old antenna had a Gold non solder connector the new was soldered by me and I can recv//send from Midway Marine to West Sister with no problem (10-13mile).I would check connector and where it connects to radio. good connection+8'+good radio= send/receive.
with any 8' antenna you should get 8 to 10 miles if you have good connections. with a high grade antenna like the Shakespeare 5225 you should get 15+ miles out of it. I just have a cheap little radio and had a cheap antenna. I could do ok but felt it was what I was supposed to get. then I started reading about how important the antenna is. so I did some research and found out you needed a good antenna. I talked to others and a lot of them were using the 5225 antenna. they had the xt or xp models and was very happy with the performance. I elected to go with the Shakespeare 5399 9'6" antenna. I still have the cheap radio but I'm still able to talk to boats many miles away. i'll never buy another cheap antenna again. but even with a cheap antenna you should be able to talk farther than you are now.
I did have an antenna go bad on me once and I could only talk about 1/2 mile. if your connections are good you may have a bad antenna. I was broke down on erie when my radio quit working but I was still able to contact the coast guard. and they got me help.