Trojan Boat Forum

Hello every one, I have not had the chance to post much this season, well in my case a non season. This rain s@#% has got to stop. Some of you know that I had a radio problem, this was hashed out over many of posts and never got solved. Well, I purchased a new radio along with a new antenna. After the installation, by hooking the power up to the same spot the original radio was placed, the radio kept giving me a low battery warning. If I attached the radio power to a battery, the warning would go away. The boat is a 1976 so the wiring needs a make over in some areas. I ran all new wire up to the buss bars on both the pos and neg side, the radio still was giving me the warning of low battery. At this point I was getting a little frustrated with the whole thing so I reviewed the wiring of the old radio installation. The person whom in there infamous wisdom attached the neg side of the power feed to the pos feed for the panel lights. Sure you would get a ground because the lamps were attached to the ground. Good thing I never went out at night, things could have been interesting. Needless to say I did not have to purchase a new radio after all.

Ouch! Glad you found it ... now you have a 2nd radio (mount in the salon?) for redundancy for trips!

i HAVE 3

The radio uses its maximum power when transmitting. You should use wire large enough to power the radio so you have no more then a 3% voltage drop. You will find a chart in the West Marine catalog. (page 427 of the 2008 catalog) The length of wire is measured by the distance the run is from the battery to the radio and back to the battery. If you pick up the power at the main distribution panel, you can start and end your measurment at the panel.

Poor transmition of the radio is usually caused by having too small of wire supplying power to the radio.

Yea, I am gonna have to re-do my Radio situation here soon as well.

Originally when the boat was new it had speakers in the wheel house, under the bench seat, and the fly bridge in the walls, all volume controlled by vol. knobs and all powered from the salon HOUSE stereo.... No channel control that way....

Somewhere along the way someone cut in a stereo into the wheel house storage area. clean install, looks factory and it provides power to the speakers in the salon that can be directed off the rear transom area...

Then my Dad came along and added a flybridge stereo with speakers out on the front deck as well.

That's 3 stereo's right now.

To say the least I have too many radio's and I am planning on connecting EVERYTHING to the stereo that was cut into the wheel house and place a wired remote up to the flybridge for radio control while driving. Also gonna Amplify all the speakers and add an additional Deep Cycle battery to run the Amplifier(s) with an additional 120v charger...

Should be nice once I get it all done... But of course, this is lower on the list. I have to refinish the Teak out on the front Deck first..... Maybe it will get done this season. But at least I have a plan..

You shoulda come up this way this week. Harborfest is going on in Oswego right now. It's way cool by boat. Huge crowds, lots of food, bands all over town. Great big city wide bash !