GPS Antenna with Wifi?

[Merdead]

Hi all,

I'm new here coming from Bremen, Germany.
My 20 m2 Jollenkreuzer will receive a new wooden mast which I bought already.
A cable for navigation lights is there, but for antenna cables seems to be no space as the mast is wooden with fill pieces.
anyhow, I thought about fitting an GPS antenna and the VHF as well with Wifi similar to the Maiana AIS or the Windsensors.

I know this are important data and the connection should not fail for safety reasons of course.

Happy to hear your thoughts, thanks,
André

[abarrow]

Just curious, are your halyards outside the mast also?

The issue is power. Even if you could get a VHF with some sort of remote control, a typical VHF running at 25 watts will draw several amps of current. That's not to mention the size of the box that it would all have to go in, up on the mast.

I suggest that if you can't get the antenna feedline inside your mast, that you look at options for running it cleanly on the outside of the mast. Your only other option would be to put the antenna at deck level, which would reduce your range considerably. GPS is not typically a problem anymore - you can have a GPS antenna below deck and still have a good signal to your GPS receiver.

[Merdead]

Not sure yet. If some more can be inside, it will be the cables or both. Need to investigate that. The boat builder said, there's not much space. Power maybe shared with the Nav Lights if I run a 3 wire cable instead of two which is probably there now. On the other hand a Nav Light already needs at least 3 wires for anchor light and red/green...

[foxglovecheep]

Just curious, are your halyards outside the mast also?

The issue is power. Even if you could get a VHF with some sort of remote control, a typical VHF running at 25 watts will draw several amps of current. That's not to mention the size of the box that it would all have to go in, up on the mast.

I suggest that if you can't get the antenna feedline inside your mast, that you look at options for running it cleanly on the outside of the mast. Your only other option would be to put the antenna at deck level, which would reduce your range considerably. GPS is not typically a problem anymore - you can have a GPS antenna below deck and still have a good signal to your GPS receiver.

Thanks for the analysis. Really important knowledge to get the connections right and run the program efficiently.

[abarrow]

Not sure yet. If some more can be inside, it will be the cables or both. Need to investigate that. The boat builder said, there's not much space. Power maybe shared with the Nav Lights if I run a 3 wire cable instead of two which is probably there now. On the other hand a Nav Light already needs at least 3 wires for anchor light and red/green...

I don't know how much it will help, but there are ways to do anchor light and masthead nav light with only two wires. I've seen the systems offered commercially, but you can do it yourself with a switch and some diodes.