Fitting a DAB radio

x25dave

x25dave

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Hi all,
could do with some advice please. I am confused, again, I have a Roberts DAB portable radio, which works fine on my boat.

I want to fit a car type radio CD player on board as I feel that this will be more secure. As in literally not falling around whilst sailing.

My current radio uses it's own aerial, but when I search for car type radios, they seem to state that they require another aerial.

I was intending to get one of those splitters so that I could use the VHF aerial which is at the top of my mast.

Will this work please?

Regards Dave
 
I think you can get boxes which use your VHF aerial (make sure it's an FM splitter, not an AIS one), but I've never needed one. Plenty of boats just have the aerial stuffed in a locker near the stereo. On our old boat I bought a stick-on antenna meant to be stuck to a car windscreen, and stuck it onto the back of a piece of wooden trim along the side of the hull. Worked fine. The new boat again had a stubby car antenna dangling from a hook behind the chart table; I'll either keep this or fit the same kind of stick-on strip.

EDIT: Just realised we're talking DAB rather than normal radio. I don't have any experience of DAB on a boat; perhaps the antenna requirements are stricter? But then again, if your current portable works below decks, so should any aerial.

Pete
 
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DAB radios have improved over the last few years. Our latest Roberts DAB is far, far better on power consumption than our older DAB portables.

I had a Sony DAB car radio on the boat which was great but very heavy on the batteries (we use the radio a lot). I ended up putting it in my car and getting the Roberts portable for the boat. For us, that has proven to be the best arrangement.

If you have a DAB car radio you need a DAB aerial. I made my own for the boat which was mounted on the backstay. It was an experiment which worked far better than I had hoped. (Smug smilie needed :))

I like DAB radio.
 
I fitted a Sony car type DAB radio to our boat 2years ago and it came with its own DAB aerial, which went into a separate socket from the FM one. It was basically a strip of sticky tape with two wires, each one leading from the centre of the tape along its length, one connected to the screen and the other to the centre conductor. I stuck it to the glassfibre behind the headling and find the DAB reception in the Solent is very good. The FM aerial is jus a normal car type. I have found the DAB radio to be well worth the effort of fitting
 
prv said:
I think you can get boxes which use your VHF aerial (make sure it's an FM splitter, not an AIS one), but I've never needed one. Plenty of boats just have the aerial stuffed in a locker near the stereo. On our old boat I bought a stick-on antenna meant to be stuck to a car windscreen, and stuck it onto the back of a piece of wooden trim along the side of the hull. Worked fine. The new boat again had a stubby car antenna dangling from a hook behind the chart table; I'll either keep this or fit the same kind of stick-on strip.

EDIT: Just realised we're talking DAB rather than normal radio. I don't have any experience of DAB on a boat; perhaps the antenna requirements are stricter? But then again, if your current portable works below decks, so should any aerial.

Pete
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the logic that I was applying.
Was just worried that the Portable had something in it that the car radio doesn't?

Dave.:confused:
 
Gentlemen, I went ahead and bought a DAB car stereo.
They require two aerials, one for FM, one for DAB, SIMPLES!!!!

Thanks one and all.
 
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