While walking the dog down the dock to the dog walk area we passed a man replacing his old VHF radio with a new one. He said the old one had to much noise. He was removing wire nuts from the old radio leads and was going to connect his new radio the same way. I told him that wire nuts should not be used and that could be the source of the noise he was getting. I told him I would help him after the dog's needs were taken care of.
I brought back my soldering iron and crimping tools. I told him that wire nuts let moisture get in and the corrosion it can cause gives a bad connection.When the boat moves the wires move and you get noise. I like to solder the connections if I can. Soldering gives a solid corrosive resistant connection. If they can not be soldered, crimp butt connectors should be used. Both types of connections need to have heat-shrink tubing over them to protect them and then liquid electric tape painted over the ends of the tubing to seal them.
I ask him if he was going to interface his new radio with his GPS. He had not planned to and was not sure how to or why it should be. When I told him it was usually just two connections and that doing so allows DSC functionality. DSC gives the Cost Guard your location, identity and boat information automatically when you make a mayday call. We checked the owners manuals and had it interfaced in short order.
He was sure glad he had replaced the radio...the new one was almost noise free, not like his old one and he had DSC, what ever that was.
He thanked me for my help and for soldering the connections. He also gave me a dog cookie, as he called it, for the dog for dragging me past his boat at the right time.
No comments:
Post a Comment