Boat Forum / Electronics / September 2003

Can someone tell me if there is a PL-259 connector for UHF and a
different one for VHF? I got a 259 from Radio Shack that was labeled
for UHF. It looked the same to me so I installed it, along with a
Shakespeare VHF antenna for a VHF marine band radio. Would not

A friend bought a 19.2 v Sears cordless drill for use on his boat.
He's cruising now in Aust so no 110 VAC wall power. The charger won't
charge the 19.2 VDC battery on either his inverter or his Honda
generator. Sears doesn't have a 12VDC charger so now what.

I have a 44' standard class house boat reserved for Lake Powell. I
want to be able to recharge a deep cycle marine battery (group 27) for
a trolling motor.
I am especially concerned about overloading any aspect of the boats

I'm building an extensive NMEA network aboard "Lionheart" for its
owner who likes to have 2 of all the toys.  I encountered a problem
adding a Yeoman to interface the paper charts to the network,
yesterday, that might be a good idea for everyone to know about.......

Who can offer advice on trying to do a full upgrade on electronics while
underway?  Do I need more than what follows?
24Mile radar, Autopilot linked to GPS, Fishfinder/depthfinder, possbily
replace gauges and cables where needed, charging system, inverter, VHF.  I

I have a problem that's got me stumped. I am getting NMEA string noise in my
SSB on various channels, starting with 2162.
I have a Garmin GPS that feeds into a Noland Engineering NMEA Expander. The
SSB and three other devices come out. When I turn the power off to the

Webmasters at Georgetown Online are understandably excited by the wooden
boat community's acceptance of its latest message area - The Wooden Boat
Forum. http://pub52.ezboard.com/fgeorgetownonlinefrm33
The figures are nothing short of astounding. They opened on the evening of

Has anyone heard of companies offering Broadband for boats?

I have purchased some gauges (Amp, Tach, Oil Pressure, Water Temp) all from
the same company (Classic Instruments) because I liked the look of them for
our boat.  Problem is the ammeter range is -60 AMPS to +60 AMPS.  On my
little boat the max amp draw even with everything running ...

I purchased and intalled a nice 12 volt fan over my galley stove to disperse
the heat build up in the overhead.
I now find that the fan motor creates a buzzing sound in my FM radio
(haven't checked yet to see if it bothers the VHF).

My old knot meter has quit working and needs to be replaced on my 22'
racing sailboat.  After looking around at the optiions the Nexus NX2
system look the best to me.  It is a bit of an overkill for what I
really need but I like thing with buttons.

Could someone kindly provide
me with a list of the extensions (such
as .nos) for the file types that Cap'n is
capable of reading? I don't seem to find

I run my boat's laptop from a square wave inverter. The charger hums when I
do this.....would this damage the charger? My electric razor does the same
thing when it's plugged in but switched off.  Both these things work fine, I
just worry about the humming. Am I doing damage here?

I have purchased a GPSmap 188c and been unable to use it. It
causes tremendouse interference with my VHF radio. I've tried
all the obvious electrical fixes to no avail.
Does anyone have any experience with this?

I have the Omni model GX2340S VHF unit and it has just about every feature
(I thought) that I desired.. I finally got around to wiring up all the
connectors on the back and found it did have a NMEA connector..
But when I went to program in my SSID number, the menu wouldn't activate. ...