While out at sea, being able to communicate using marine antennas is of vital importance. Whether it’s for commercial fishing or for recreational use, a marine antenna is a vessel’s lifeline to the outside world. Your boat’s marine antenna is something that you don’t want to take for granted. While many people do their best to predict weather patterns and swear that their own experience has taught them enough to be safe at sea, the fact remains that the ocean can be a highly unpredictable place where effective communication with the outside world is a necessity.
At GAM Electronics, we’ve been producing high quality marine antennas for over fifty years now, so are very familiar with the downfalls that can come with having a damaged or poorly made marine antenna. Before any boating trip, it is essential to test the antenna and its radio. An easy way to test your boat’s communication abilities is to use your radio to communicate with a friend’s boat or a base station of a known distance on a non-emergency channel. Both marine antennas can properly assess the quality of each other’s transmissions this way.
A simple visual check of your boat’s marine antenna is another easy way to get an idea as to how effective your transmissions will be. Look for wear and tear on the marine antenna itself. Large fractures or cracks in the antenna’s casing can highly affect system performance. A boat’s marine antenna can take a real beating while out at sea. Harsh weather conditions and an unruly sea can cause excessive damage to a boat’s antenna and hinder its ability to communicate properly.
Keeping Yourself Safe
Also check to make sure that there are no signs of corrosion in or around your boat’s antenna, and look for loose connections to the antenna itself. Excessive corrosion and loose or damaged connections to the antenna can result in poor transmission performance and can endanger the lives of anyone onboard the vessel.
You can also test the antenna by disconnecting it from the radio and seeing how its signal weakens or disappears. Slowly reconnecting just the tip of the coax connector should slowly increase the signal. As you insert the coax connector, the signal strength should increase. If it happens to disappear again, there may be serious problems with the antenna or connector. If jiggling the connector produces significant changes in signal strength, your antenna’s connection to the cable itself could be faulty.
It is a good idea to have a back up antenna onboard your boat at all times. Our Mini Series antennas are compact and can be easily stowed on your boat for use in emergency situations. If your main antenna fails, having a secondary antenna could mean the difference between life and death at sea. Effective communication while at sea should be at the top of every boater’s priority list. You never know when something could irreparably damage your antenna while on the ocean. We encourage every boater to always make sure that their antenna and radio are performing at their best before heading out to sea.
If you’re interested in marine antennas, contact us at: 1-207-583-4670