Connect Handheld VHF to boats antenna

[smac999]

Buy a pl259 adapter that fits your handheld (they come in different connectors )

When needed. Remove ant from ships vhf and attach to handheld vhf.

It would have limited uses. It’s still 5w. Range may go slightly higher then just handheld. But Likly not much

[Jim Cate]

It would have limited uses. It’s still 5w. Range may go slightly higher then just handheld. But Likly not much

Au contraire... 5 watts will reach out to the VHF horizon perfectly well from whatever height the antenna is. We get consistent contacts with our 2 watt AIS out between 12 and 18 miles... from our masthead antenna.

Jim

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Brian.D

You don't want a splitter, you wnat a switch.



If the splitter fails you can have RF striking the other device attached. The switch will require you to manually change the RF path from the antenna to whatever device is attached. It is bidirectional so you can have two antennas and one radio or two radios and one antenna.

I had that exact splitter on my boat. It corroded and seized after a few months. Not for sea service.

Why not just swap coax connections in an emergency?

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Au contraire... 5 watts will reach out to the VHF horizon perfectly well from whatever height the antenna is. We get consistent contacts with our 2 watt AIS out between 12 and 18 miles... from our masthead antenna.

Jim

Agree. Provided your transmitter has enough power to exceed the noise level and open a properly adjusted squelch at the receiving station, antenna height has everything to do with range. You could go from 5 watts to 500 watts and not increase your range radius 10 percent.

Extra power only helps in a very RF noisy environments and when you are trying to transmit over some idiot with a stuck mic, or his kids playing with the radio. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often. At least not where I sail. It was a real issue when I sailed in the S.F. Bay.

I tried a Vesper AIS/VHF splitter. I was disappointed with the (measured) power loss and the receive audio dropouts when the AIS transmitted. I could hear annoying holes punched in the VHF receive audio whenever the AIS transmitted. They are only about 30 millisecond dropounts, but I could hear them. The squelch would also open occasionally on my VHF receiver during AIS transmissions. The whole effect was annoying. I still have the splitter if either my VHF or AIS antennas fail, so I can share one antenna - but just putting up a third spare VHF antenna would have been a lot cheaper.

If you can set up two antennas, do that. Skip the splitter aproach.

[Coquina]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Au contraire... 5 watts will reach out to the VHF horizon perfectly well from whatever height the antenna is. We get consistent contacts with our 2 watt AIS out between 12 and 18 miles... from our masthead antenna.

Jim

A 5 watt HT with a masthead antenna will have most of the range of the 25 watt radio and a 25 watt radio with a deck level antenna would likely lose a range contest with the 5 watt radio 60 feet up.
I had a radio failure flying to Miami and hooked my HT up to a spare antenna we had installed just for this purpose. I had no problem talking to ATC 50 miles out from altitude with the 4-5 watt HT.