new vhf setup

[simonafloat]

Spent a few days building a new vhf setup for my aerotec.



I managed to fry my old vhf by accidentally connecting it to reverse polarity. Not my cleverest moment! So I bit the bullet and bought a standard horizon 1600e explorer.

Built a sealed ply box with some leftover aluminium fascia board on the side of the box to dissapate heat a little. This is screwed down onto rubber draught exluder.

Inside the box is a 7ah gel battery and a 12v to 5v step down box. This powers the globalsat gps mouse you can see mounted on the top. it also gives an extra 5v output to a Usb charger point on tne side of the box. there's also a waterproof cigarette lighter socket on the side of the box for charging the battery and running any external 12v items. Planning on mounting it behind and level with the thwart using some leftover wallplate straps from work. The only gripe so far is the step down transformer - it introduces a little radio click which i will try to suppress with some capacitors and suppressors.

1600e - brilliant, £118 and allows you to programme waypoints.

br355 globalsat mouse - £20. picks up satellites within seconds, even indoors

step down transformer £5
switches and sockets £10
case - FOC, building site leftovers

cheers

simon

[ShinyShoe]

What you using for the antenna?

[Max...]

That looks an interesting set-up.

I have to ask though (especially on a SIB - and I'm thinking of my day out yesterday at sea in F5 when it was pretty easy to be ejected along with any kit ) - why would a high spec handheld clipped to your LJ not be sufficient or practical?

[simonafloat]

good questions - am using a fibreglass antenna at the moment although it is not ideal - whips around like crazy.

i decided to switch to a fixed vhf setup before i attempted the crossing to lundy. i figured that 25watts vs 4/5 watts was a better place to be if i got into trouble 25 miles out to sea, and it worked very well, no problems reporting my safe arrival to milford haven from the landing bay at lundy. A handheld with gps and dsc would have cost more than the total cost of my current setup. this setup is now very robust and completely waterproof. just need to swap to a more suitable rib antenna now.