Installing a VHF radio in any boat can be a challenge. We look at installing a VHF radio into a Beneteau Antares 8 (2021 model) - it's not as easy as you would hope!
When installing a VHF radio in a boat, the first thing is to choose a good location: somewhere dry and protected, within easy reach when sailing the boat, and the other thing to think about is the routing for the VHF power supply and the routing of the VHF antenna.
In this video we install a VHF radio in the Beneteau Antares just under the throttle control area. We investigated the main wiring area behind the main console and found a 'birds-nest' of wires with not labelling and no clear idea where we could tap into the existing wiring safely. We decided the safest and most future-proof approach would be to add an additional electrical bus-bar, powered from the main boat master switch, and in a location where we could use the bus-bar to power our VHF radio and also any future electrical components that we add to the boat.
Installing the bus-bar and routing the wiring to the main boat master switch was not too difficult a job, after choosing a location for the bus-bar inside a cupboard area.
More difficult with this VHF installation was finding a way of routing the antenna cable from the roof area of the boat to the VHF radio. The main challenge was finding a clear route for the VHF antenna cable through from the roof, down the rear fibre-glass pillar down into the cabin area, making use of the speaker hole to help feed the antenna cable through. Take a look through the video to see how we achieved this - in the end!
Some of the electrical components seen in this video can be found below:
boatfittings.c...
28 сен 2024
