Funny VHF

[30boat]

Following my previous post on how to check a VHF antenna I went down to the boat and tested my two sets with my VSWR set.The Sailor gave a 25 and 1 W power measurement and a SWR a lot below 2 so that's good.The Simrad R68 gave less than 0.5W and I couldn't measure the SWR because there was not enough power to calibrate the meter but since the antenna worked well with the Sailor l I'm OK with that.
What's amazing is that when I did a radio check both radios were picked up perfectly by a shore station 12m away.Their aerial is very tall so that partially explains it but I still find it odd.
The R68 displays a little "ANT" sign wich means there's something wrong with the output.
Can somebody explain how this can be?

 

[William_H]

Actual performance on the air of a VHF radio is not a very good indication of its efficiency. Of course it is useful in that it shows a lot of the circuits are working fine but not how good the antenna or output stage are working.
An FM receiver (the shore station)(and your own set) has circuits in the radio which limit or reduce the signal strength to a standard level (unlike an AM radio which relies on the varying strength to convey the inteligence)
Sp providing the incominng signal is above the minimum necessary (back round electrical noise) all signals will appear the same strength to the operator. (unless he has a signal strength indicator)

So it is not surprising that he couldn't tell the difference. Nevertheless at range your bad radio will fail to communicate first.

It eally seems like you should chuck it... good luck olewill