After going out on Pirate Girl racing with Miriam and Patty, I met Mike back at the marina to install the coax for the Vhf Antenna. I had met Mike the previous weekend sailing on Pirate Girl.. He is an Extra Class Ham Radio Operator that also teaches classes for ham radio in the local areas. I had gotten into a conversation with him about radios and such and mentioned that I was installing at vhf antenna on my mast and he volunteered to give me a hand with soldering the PL259 ends on and pulling the cable.
What actually happened is that he not only helped me do the work but he brought the parts and the coax also. It wouldn’t have happened sunday without his help. Originally I was going to use some coax that Richard gave me but we found out that it was about 3 feet to short for the run up the mast. This was a last minute discovery two days before we were going to pull the cable. I had not bothered ordering any coax online because I had thought there would be enough out of what richard gave me. No one but west marine has (RG-8x) 50 ohm coax in the local area.. everyone carries 75 ohm cable used for cable tv and video applications. I finally tracked down at the ocean isle radio shack a 50 ft length of pre-made cable for 39 dollers (which is much cheaper than what west marine sells it for but still pricy.) Before running up I had to touch base with Mike and he told me not to worry he was bringing a spool of RG-8x with him. (He had gotten a big spool at a ham fest for 15 dollers 🙂 nice deal) Anyway he brought a monster soldering iron and PL-259 ends and we pulled the cable and Mike soldered the ends on. Then did a continuity test on it.. 🙂 good job everything worked. In the end he wouldn’t even let me pay for the coax or ends just said he was having fun doing it.
So thank you Mike 🙂 you are a champ.
Yes, having friends with resources is very useful… 😀
But is it marine-grade coax??
Standard RG-8x very very well done and sealed. Cost was right