iBoat Skipper Doug
Active Member
- Aug 8, 2018
- 140
- Boat Info
- 2003 225 Weekender w/Bravo III drive
2019 Venture trailer
- Engines
- 5.7 MPI Mercruiser w/Bravo III drive
I’ve often found in life, once you find the answer, it suddenly becomes obvious.
I’m sharing this embarrassing story in hopes that just maybe, it will help someone else.
Last fall I added some electronics to my boat, including a modern VHF, antenna, and GPS Chart-plotter, networked with a NEMA 0813 connection. We went boating several times, and all went well.
Late this spring, tidying up the boat, I better organized my helm wiring.
Fast forward to June’s Walleye Weekend in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. We were leaving Fond du Lac’s Lake Side park marina. Still in the no-wake area, I went to hail someone on my VHF. As soon as I pressed the Mic button, my horn went off. What the.....?
In disbelief, I did some additional testing. Looking back, this caused confusion to another boater in front of me also leaving the marina. If you are THAT boater, sorry, I was not beeping at you.
After more testing, I determined the issue only occurred when a combination of items were on, the VHF, and certain electrical accessories such as my navigational lights, depth finder, etc. I wired the darn thing and I knew I never connected any wires between the horn, navigation lights, depth finder and the VHF.
Making my long trouble shooting story short, back home, I cut a cable tie holding my VHF antenna cable neatly to the hidden, under-side of my helm. As soon as I did this, everything worked normally.
So, I concluded that before I cut the cable tie, when I made a call on the VHF, the voltage in the antenna cable caused enough radio frequency interference through the wires insulation to make my horn blast if the helm control pad containing the horn button had at least one other item tuned on. Adding some distance between the wires was the solution.
As soon as I added some space between the control wires and the VHF antenna wire, the problem was solved.
I’m sharing this embarrassing story in hopes that just maybe, it will help someone else.
Last fall I added some electronics to my boat, including a modern VHF, antenna, and GPS Chart-plotter, networked with a NEMA 0813 connection. We went boating several times, and all went well.
Late this spring, tidying up the boat, I better organized my helm wiring.
Fast forward to June’s Walleye Weekend in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. We were leaving Fond du Lac’s Lake Side park marina. Still in the no-wake area, I went to hail someone on my VHF. As soon as I pressed the Mic button, my horn went off. What the.....?
In disbelief, I did some additional testing. Looking back, this caused confusion to another boater in front of me also leaving the marina. If you are THAT boater, sorry, I was not beeping at you.
After more testing, I determined the issue only occurred when a combination of items were on, the VHF, and certain electrical accessories such as my navigational lights, depth finder, etc. I wired the darn thing and I knew I never connected any wires between the horn, navigation lights, depth finder and the VHF.
Making my long trouble shooting story short, back home, I cut a cable tie holding my VHF antenna cable neatly to the hidden, under-side of my helm. As soon as I did this, everything worked normally.
So, I concluded that before I cut the cable tie, when I made a call on the VHF, the voltage in the antenna cable caused enough radio frequency interference through the wires insulation to make my horn blast if the helm control pad containing the horn button had at least one other item tuned on. Adding some distance between the wires was the solution.
As soon as I added some space between the control wires and the VHF antenna wire, the problem was solved.
Last edited:
