DAB aerial in a steel boat

[Gavi]

Has anyone done this? I am looking at changing the stero head unit for a DAB one with iPod compatability. I don't fancy mounting a new aerial and seem to recall that someone has found the little "standard" aerial works quite well when subtly mounted in the boat.... but I cannot find the post and also suspect the steel hull might have a word or two to say to Mr Radiowaves.

 

[TrueBlue]

Hmm -
I saw one of the Maidenhead trip boats in Marlow lock some years ago with a Roberts Radio with its standard whip aerial. Worked well on the River he said.

Soo, I guess a mag: mount: whip external aerial would do? Local car accessory shop should have one (I assume there still some CB fans still around). Like this one from CPC

But do DAB radios have an aerial socket?

 

[Chris_d]

A standard car aerial should be fine, normaly the problem is with fibreglass boats because the aerial doesn't have a ground plane so you have to create one somehow, with a steel boat you have a massive one so should be perfect same as a car of which most are made of steel

 

[oldgit]

Am using a standard car attenna on my boat for DAB.
The signal should be improving by the day due to transmitter power being increased.
The tx is around 220mhz for any tightwads who want cut a bit of wire to length.

 

[Gavi]

oooo, so I have a car stereo fitting... fitted aerial... steel boat.... it could all work - just worth trying and, if not, come up with an alternative?

 

[TrueBlue]

oooo, so I have a car stereo fitting... fitted aerial... steel boat.... it could all work - just worth trying and, if not, come up with an alternative?

Works for me - well on most parts of the River - but I'm only on standard FM. If you get problems and you've made a sensible effort to get a good signal (up as high as you reasonably can), then it might be worth trying a cheapo aerial amplifier; 12v ones are available. For some reason car stereos don't like long cable runs.

 

[Gavi]

Works for me - well on most parts of the River - but I'm only on standard FM. If you get problems and you've made a sensible effort to get a good signal (up as high as you reasonably can), then it might be worth trying a cheapo aerial amplifier; 12v ones are available. For some reason car stereos don't like long cable runs.

Thanks for this and the other replies - they have helped me.

I think the nub of my question is whether the standard FM aerial that is on the masthead will feed a signal to a DAB radio (rather than standard FM). I thought it wouldn't, but...

If it will, then the solution is simple: buy and fit a DAB radio using the current connectors.

It it won't, then I need to find a way to fit a DAB aerial and I still wonder if a suitably hidden standard one will work from inside the boat... or will the steel stifle the signal?

 

[TrueBlue]

Thanks for this and the other replies - they have helped me.

I think the nub of my question is whether the standard FM aerial that is on the masthead will feed a signal to a DAB radio (rather than standard FM). I thought it wouldn't, but...

If it will, then the solution is simple: buy and fit a DAB radio using the current connectors.

It it won't, then I need to find a way to fit a DAB aerial and I still wonder if a suitably hidden standard one will work from inside the boat... or will the steel stifle the signal?

I suspect we're missing what you mean by "standard one", so I'll stick my neck out and assume you mean a "miniature tv type" such as this:-

You occasionally see these mounted on houses. If you do, then being as directional as a tv aerial or satellite dish, they're not usable as you move along - I'm assuming You'll want to listen to the radio as you motor?
A whip aerial is not directional, that's why FM has been so successful for folks on the move. The problem for DAB is that it's using a much higher frequency which loses strength very quickly, so vehicle reception is poor.

Coming back to your question. I think in the London area you ought to get an acceptable signal with a whip aerial of the right length (a bit shorter than a marine VHF one) plus an amplifier.

A multi element in the cabin - quite apart from pointing it in the right direction, and its bulkiness is not likely to be better than an external whip or any use at all.

Doesn't your car radio have FM as well? or are the channels you want only on DAB?

I have no experience of DAB as we're unlikely to get a decent signal here, so we use satellite and/or Freeview for radio channels when we want to listen only. The quality is much better than DAB anyway.

Is that waffle a bit clearer?

 

[Chris_d]

Is that waffle a bit clearer?

No but I maybe using the wrong aerial

 

[Gavi]

Got you

Being extreme, I am refering to something like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philex-2774...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1329395919&sr=1-1

Or this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HAL1-GLASS-...2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1329396067&sr=1-2

It would be for use between London and the upper wild bits of The Thames (Reading etc). Most of the time we travel in silence, but I do like to listen to sport sometimes and SWMBO The Archers. She would benefit from plays when moored... me Planet Rock (not too loud of course).

I am starting to worry if I am overcomplicating things and should just buy a good FM head unit with a quality iPod interface as we could stream plays via that anyway...

 

[Gumpy]

You have seen the barge so you know how small the windows are, we use a DAB radio with no external aerial just the whip on the top and get satisfactory reception most places we travel.


Julian

 

[TrueBlue]

Got you

Being extreme, I am refering to something like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philex-2774...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1329395919&sr=1-1

Or this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HAL1-GLASS-...2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1329396067&sr=1-2

It would be for use between London and the upper wild bits of The Thames (Reading etc). Most of the time we travel in silence, but I do like to listen to sport sometimes and SWMBO The Archers. She would benefit from plays when moored... me Planet Rock (not too loud of course).

I am starting to worry if I am overcomplicating things and should just buy a good FM head unit with a quality iPod interface as we could stream plays via that anyway...

Getting a bit clearer now.
The Philex type is what I had in mind. The horrible glass mount aerial at twice the price could even be worse....

I had a look at Halfords (they used to be quite a good source for car radios, but I'm out of date) and there's a Phirrips head unit in the list which is FM and DAB, so there are some around and you've not burnt your boats.

here and they also do an external aerial for a similar price to Amazon. It's just an example not a recommendation, you understand.
Being a bit of a meany I don't have much truck with spending loads of money on a high end head units with Dolby 5.1 and gigawatts of sub woofer. Probably more appropriate not to have such a rig in a boat as there's less room than in a car (where everything goes into what used to be the boot space) for all the kit.

One nice feature to have (apart from your other specifics) is two sets of speaker outputs - one near the driving position and one down below to satisfy motoring or moored needs.

If we need to do some serious music listening then I have a small home cinema setup connected to the satellite receiver....

 

[No Regrets]

Speak to Charles at Moonraker, they do loads of aerials.

 

[Gavi]

DAB aerials: The conclusion

Well, there isn't one really.

I found a really nice unit online for a low price that had DAB (funny how predictive text changes that to BAD!) and FM for a sensible price:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MUTANT-MT...0?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item3a6eccc0ba

Importantly, the inputs are to the left of the unit as that matters to location of the unit in the boat.

Still no-one has really explained the way to do a DAB aerial in a boat better than having one in a barge with a normal aerial - which is something I have noted.

So I took SWMBO to the pub to discuss this conundrum. She said:

We have one of these (two actually):

http://www.pure.com/products/product.asp?Product=VL-61085&Category=

And a small boat. Just buy a lead and hook up the iPod to it, she said. And this fits with the barge solution. Though I wanted less clutter... And here was me trying to find a tidy solution.

So, I'm off to play with my Johnson and get Amy J working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3njQ8iOuEw

Thanks for the advice!