Thanks Earl, glad you enjoyed it. :)

It's an oldie but a goodie :)

As an amateur radio operator too my wife would not concur on how much I have just spent on my new Icom PS dont ask

I’ll make the sandwiches. :)

@@DangarMarine I really wish I could make the trip. Between you, Brupeg, She’ll be right, and Free Range Sailing...a good portion of my viewing is from down under. I just might have emigrate. Move all my shop gear and give everyone a hand.

Interesting to hear, I got these antennas in a bit of a rush from a local store. It will be interesting to talk to Pacific Aerials about better options.

At midnight a new DM video. ...sleep is overrated anyhow. - When a man sleeps, nothing is happening. When a man is awake, he can even catch a fish - ...wise words from the late Matti Nykänen...

QRZ, DE VK4FAKE, 73's

@@mwethereld cheers from vk4fkas 73

​@@villiersman951 cheers from DL5SCW 73

I have a friend who is a Ham radio operator too, we really wants to experiment more with radios on the boat. :)

@@DangarMarine 73's de VK4NFL

Pleasure craft. Nice!!!

Guess he got it working!

Great site. There's a similarly useful one for aircraft called "planefinder" net that I've been using for more than a decade.

@@KowboyUSA I use flightradar24 which is kind of the gold standard app. Check it out

@@CessnaPilot99 That's a good one. Thanks!

Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it! :)

Glad you liked it!

Thanks mate, glad it was helpful.

More to come!

Thanks mate.

That's it. They are great on their own, but it's amazing what they can do when working together on a network.

So nice of you, glad you like the vids. :)

Glad to help

Thanks Kevin, I'm looking forward to getting the rest of the gear in too!

Thanks mate. I think it only gets more interesting as you start to see how the various pieces interact and work together.

Thanke mate, glad you like the vids. :)

The skip is slowly returning too ..... FINALLY.

My mom met my horrible trucker step dad on her Cobra when he was on a 10-200.

Thanks Daniel. :)

Thanks Matthew, hope to catch up again before we head north. :)

It is a great simple system. :)

Thanks mate. You definitely need good equipment that is working as well as it can when you go to sea.

Glad to help

Thanks mate, I'm looking forward to getting everything wired up too. :)

He sure is, I've been learning heaps from him too.

Hello there!

It is always great to talk with someone who really knows their stuff on any given subject. So much to learn but it's all very interesting.

Thanks mate, was great to have the opportunity to capture Jon's experience on video.

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks mate! :)

Thanks mate, it was interesting to learn more about what it means and how it works across the frequency spectrum. Maybe not super important for VHF but very interesting non the less. :)

@@DangarMarine lt is if you wont to transmitte at longer distance....Modern radios have a safe guard built into them to keep them from over heating the finals (power transistors) but also have transistors to kick the finals...But also haft to find a happy medium between different channels on your radio...Cheers my friend...

It sure is pretty amazing these days. :)

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks David!

Things definitely get much more complicated when you have multiple units interfering with each other.

Metal or glass boat? Glass boats used to have wire mesh put under the antenna to help it.

@@NullaNulla Ally boat, the Raymarine expert gave me some clues as to what the problem could be

Fiberglass antennas and coax go bad with salt water getting in little cracks. They need service or replacement exposed to foul weather. Commercial vessels use stainless steel thru the bulkhead mounts. Overkill? But a backup antenna is a good thing if you need range.

Take a grinder and bosuns chair!

@@NullaNulla That's why they tend to use halfwave antennas, no groundplane needed. Important atop a sailboat mast.

It did make me laugh when I first heard that. :)

More on that next week!

Mostly still get one out each week, this one was 8 days since the last though. ;)

Our pleasure!

As a licensed HAM radio operator for 35ish years I’ve always wondered how this shit worked. With the clarity of Stu’s explanation the lightbulb finally went off.

Had a look on Marine Traffic, and there you are. Excellent. Nice photo of the boat when you pull up the vessel data card.

Glad it was helpful! Yes, we are lucky that someone locally is acting as an internet gateway for AIS .

My pleasure!

Glad it was helpful!

It is amazing how much cool tech there is for boats these daysl

Very welcome

Very cool! :)

Thanks, you too!

Thats actually a description quoted by Albert Einstein... You see, the wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is there is no cat.

Man you took the fun out of that. It's the way Stu describes things, matter of fact but cool and well timed. You go with your brillancy.

Blimey the comment bores are out in force tonight. It was bloody funny. I sprayed my beer laughing. Stu’s dead pan is always brilliant.

Apparently it was said to be an Einstein quote but wasn't actually. It's still funny to think of Einstein saying it. :)

@@DangarMarine I had no idea. Was very funny, had to clean up the beer after though....

Thanks 👍

It is interesting stuff and not as common as I would have thought given how long it has been around.

I don't think I've had a clean one in years! ;) Sounds like a nice setup on your boat. It is great the way all this gear works together now with the networking side of things. Much better than the old days of having separate sounder / GPS / radar etc.

Me too, lots of cool toys to play with that also make boating safer.

Makes sense to use AIS so people in the vicinity that are able to directly able to help you find out you have a person in the water.

can you explain in more detail what you would have fussed with the antenna and in what ways ,for a better results in reception or broadcasting. im not a ham radio guy but always interested to listen and learn from those who do know thank you

@@646klein It can get complicated but it is rather important to get the VSWR of the antenna as close to 1:1 as possible at the frequency(s) you want. If cutting the antenna is not giving you a way to creep up to the ideal arrangement the I would investigate the ground plane of the antenna. There are two wires on the antenna from the back of the radio, one is to that central peace of wire, the other needs to be grounded to the structure of the pilot house at the base of the antenna. If we assume the pilot house is steel and well grounded to the rest of the steel boat and that ground connection to at the base of antenna is good then you should be able to get a better VSWR. Another thing that could affect it is the ship’s mast and other metal things near the antenna. If the grounds are good moving the antenna to be more clear of other structures can help. If all that fails then an antenna tuner, an electronic circuit made up of inductors and capacitors added underneath the antenna can help. It is a long discussion. Charlie

@@646klein 646klein, I've been tuning ham radio and CB radio antennas for years. Try to keep your antenna away from any metal that can interfere with its radiation pattern. Install an antenna that has the gain characteristics you need. I always determine my lowest and highest frequency I intend to operate on. Make your VSWR measurement on the lowest frequency first. Then compare that to the VSWR on the highest frequency. If your last channel is to low, lengthen the antenna. If your last channel is too high, shorten the antenna. Most VHF gain antennas have about a 3 Megahertz bandwidth. Unity gain antennas operate wider bandwidth, but without gain. I hope this helps.

thank you both for your replies i know that a good ground is important to the antenna to curb eddie currents and noise in the line . and that metal masts etc can disrupt signals , i worked at a gentlemans house who was a ham radio guy he had a 30ft antenna on the roof of his house with guy wires th went to the end of his garden i assume for a good ground and stability of the antenna too there is much to learn in this field thats for sure

I like it!

Every other day I try to get here to decide to join us again. :)

"11 meters 2kw" == bandit CB

@@MargaretLeber They made a film Smokey and the bandit....lol Harmless fun for millions of people back then, good business for the radio shops and people making the Ariel's and aftermarket parts...

​@@theessexhunter1305 2 kw unlicensed HF on a directional antenna isn't "harmless". Heroin is "good business" too.

@@MargaretLeber Shame on you bringing that comment into this platform.... I see you might be dropping stuff with your small plane lol....Or do you fly the c47?

Yes, planning to do a given on all the various types of grounds a boat needs.

You're welcome. :)

Sorry! ;)

Cool, thanks!