onthejob
Member
- May 1, 2013
- 266
- Boat Info
- 2003.5 Sea Ray 340 Sundancer, Raymarine A97 and Quantum radar. Hurley Davits with a Zodiac 310 Wave
- Engines
- 2x 370-hp MerCruiser 8.1S Horizon with V-Drives turning 4 blade wheels
I replaced my Raymarine Ray230 VHF radio with a brand new out of the box Ray260. Everything hooked up the same except instead of a SeaTalk1 connection I had to make the NMEA 0183 connection to the older RL70C chartplotter. Instructions said it has to be SeaTalk-ng or NMEA 0183, not both and it's for the GPS location. That connection appeared to be easier because I would have to buy a converter from SeaTalk1 to SeaTalk-ng. I also installed a brand new Shakespeare Mariner 8500 8' 6dB VHF antenna with all new RG-8X coax cable with a Shakespeare centerpin gold plated PL-259 connector to the Ray260. The base is mounted about 8' from the waterline.
So all summer I was getting complaints from other boats not hearing my transmissions and me not hearing their broadcasts unless we were about a half mile away and inline of sight of each other. I had a handheld as a back up that I ended up using more than the Ray260. Well it's next on the winter project list.
I was able to use someone's SWR/Powermeter that was small and looked lower end but owner said he gets good results with it. It is for both VHF/UHF. I connected it to the base station and I was only getting about 10 watts and yes it was set to HI power. I set it to LO power and was getting 1 watt. The manual specs say 25 watts on HI and 5 watts on LO. I checked the SWR meter and got 2:1 but I'm not sure if this reading will be accurate because the antenna is folded down under a tarp in a storage shed. It was also 35 degrees in the shed when I conducted these test readings so not sure if a cold base unit has anything to do with low power transmissions.
Anybody have any ideas about anything I may be missing before I try the Raymarine customer service route?
Thanks
So all summer I was getting complaints from other boats not hearing my transmissions and me not hearing their broadcasts unless we were about a half mile away and inline of sight of each other. I had a handheld as a back up that I ended up using more than the Ray260. Well it's next on the winter project list.
I was able to use someone's SWR/Powermeter that was small and looked lower end but owner said he gets good results with it. It is for both VHF/UHF. I connected it to the base station and I was only getting about 10 watts and yes it was set to HI power. I set it to LO power and was getting 1 watt. The manual specs say 25 watts on HI and 5 watts on LO. I checked the SWR meter and got 2:1 but I'm not sure if this reading will be accurate because the antenna is folded down under a tarp in a storage shed. It was also 35 degrees in the shed when I conducted these test readings so not sure if a cold base unit has anything to do with low power transmissions.
Anybody have any ideas about anything I may be missing before I try the Raymarine customer service route?
Thanks