Pensacola FL Sailing Blog - sailingnightwatch

I installed the tuner in the utility room. This was accomplished by through bolting it to the bulkhead that divides the utility room from the pantry. There is enough room at the top for the antenna connection and a drip sag in the wire plus room to cut the slit in the bulkhead for the 3 inch wide copper grounding strap. The control wires for the tuner were led through pre-existing holes in the bulkhead. As I have mentioned before, all the bulkheads are taped to the hull using 3 layers of heavy cloth with the first one extending about 2 feet on the bulkhead. This eats ups drill bits and saw blades but makes for a very sound boat.

The company I bought the unit from had hard wired the control wires and antenna to the tuner. I therefore only had to bolt the tuner to the bulkhead, pull the wires, connect the antenna, control wire and ground and this unit is installed. That only took a few hours.

I started with the antenna tuner. Because of the layout of the interior and exterior of the boat, the places to install the items was limited. I decided to place it in the utility room. This is a closet of good size that is off the passageway that leads to the aft stateroom. It is where we keep all my tools and various cleaning supplies and anything else we can not find a place for. We are going to purchase several Rubbermaid containers to properly store all this stuff. We will also by strapping to tie it all down.

I bought the ICOM IC-M802 with the 140 antenna tuner. The radio comes in 3 units, the transceiver and a remote that has all the controls for it’s operations. Unlike the standard VHF, this unit has a separate speaker. There is also the automatic antenna tuner. Therefore, we have 2 large boxes and 2 small boxes (as my wife calls them) to be installed. We also have a grounding strap that goes to the grounding plates, a DSC antenna and the SSB antenna to be installed. Did I mention the wiring of the DSC to the chart plotter to get location data. And of course there is the power connection. The installation of the grounding plates necessitate a haul out. Since I am scheduled for a haul out in late October for a bottom job, that part of this project will be done then.