Richard.C
Well-Known Member
I'm sorry but this is a very misleading post, there are many different designs for antennas, in most cases they are NOT simply a straight piece of wire. It is wrong to make this statement.
Last edited:
Antenna length
- Thread starter Magnum
- Start date
I'm sorry but this is a very misleading post, there are many different designs for antennas, in most cases they are NOT simply a straight piece of wire. It is wrong to make this statement.
Richard.C
Well-Known Member
Magnum, you should trust the manufacturer, they will be designing an effective antenna. I would buy a quality brand and ultimately the length does determine the gain of the antenna through it's design so just get the best gain/longest antenna you feel comfortable with.
Hurricane
Well-Known Member
For me, I would fit the very best antenna for VHF and AIS.
We have never used FM
BTW are you fitting Sat domes?
As of this year, we dont use ours much now.
We have never used FM
BTW are you fitting Sat domes?
As of this year, we dont use ours much now.
[2068]
...
Hmm, I seem to remember sitting through many 2 hour lectures with some really quite complex equations that I don't remember any more ... in almost all cases the optimal result was "Something straight, between 1 and 3 metres long".
Magnum
RIP
Nope. Last boat we had fitted with sat domes was our Pred 72, and we watched sat TV 2 or 3 times. They look nice but would be completely redundant on our 68.
jfm
Well-Known Member
Magnum I'm no expert on antennae so asked some garmin tech folks and Shakespeare and they told me 2.4m for VHF and 1.2 for ais so I did. I also bought properly uber quality cable and ran new cable all the way to the ais and VHF black boxes. It works REALLY well. I am seen on ais several miles away and I consistently hear VHF from coastguard stations 100 miles away. Yep, 100 miles consistently. Of course I can't transmit that far due to my 25w but I feel confident the antennae are good
I too have never turned on my sat tv gear in this boat. Never ever. I just stream on 4g or don't bother with tv. Waste of ten grand but 2nd hand buyers seem to want it. The dummy dome is useful in that it houses 4 GPS antennae so keeps things tidy.
You will need 3 GPS mushrooms wont you? = Main one. Dedicated ais. Dedicated sleipner stabs. I also have back up to the main mushroom, hence 4 - on garmin n2k network I can see the main and spare mushrooms and just select which to use from the touch screen, and because of that it just seemed nice idea to have a backup mushroom. Maybe same on your raymarine. (Separately I have a whole second n2k backbone and network with yet another GPS mushroom and sep power supply etc, as an uber back up, but that's another story)
I think it is great that you are moving the antennae up. They look wrong in the standard princess and fairline positions and clatter the side of the hardtop, urgh
One last thing, slightly ot. Assuming you are putting a proper VHF in the tender, make sure to order both licences on ofcom website late at night when traffic is slow. Then you get consecutive numbers- both dsc and call signs. Do the mothership first. I got callsigns 2gps3 for mother ship and 2gps4 for tender. Makes things easy to remember. (Come to think of it you might not be uk...)
I too have never turned on my sat tv gear in this boat. Never ever. I just stream on 4g or don't bother with tv. Waste of ten grand but 2nd hand buyers seem to want it. The dummy dome is useful in that it houses 4 GPS antennae so keeps things tidy.
You will need 3 GPS mushrooms wont you? = Main one. Dedicated ais. Dedicated sleipner stabs. I also have back up to the main mushroom, hence 4 - on garmin n2k network I can see the main and spare mushrooms and just select which to use from the touch screen, and because of that it just seemed nice idea to have a backup mushroom. Maybe same on your raymarine. (Separately I have a whole second n2k backbone and network with yet another GPS mushroom and sep power supply etc, as an uber back up, but that's another story)
I think it is great that you are moving the antennae up. They look wrong in the standard princess and fairline positions and clatter the side of the hardtop, urgh
One last thing, slightly ot. Assuming you are putting a proper VHF in the tender, make sure to order both licences on ofcom website late at night when traffic is slow. Then you get consecutive numbers- both dsc and call signs. Do the mothership first. I got callsigns 2gps3 for mother ship and 2gps4 for tender. Makes things easy to remember. (Come to think of it you might not be uk...)
