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Random Quote: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you get rid of him on the weekend.
Need some help experts. Will using a shakespear splitter reduce or weaken my VHF output or receiving capabilities. I really do not want to put another antenna on my boat but will if I must.
Thanks
__________________ Captain RF Mills
Location: Where the fish are, NC to FL, we travel.
Named after my children; Jonathan & Farren
No ....... I've had one installed for 2 years & hasn't effected my VHF performance whatsoever.Waste of money getting 2 antennas.VHF ICOM 502Clarion RadioShakes Galaxy 8' antenna.
A friend of mine and I have the same boat and the exact same VHF radio and Shakespeare VHF antenna. I have a separate FM/AM radio antenna and he is using a splitter. While offshore recently he could hear me very clearly but I had some difficulty hearing him as he approached my position from about ten to twelve miles away. There have been a couple of other trips that we have done since then where we were out at the same location and I was reaching out farther to the same boats we both were trying to communicate with. My friend later commented that my radio worked better than his and this was a subject of discussion at the time the decision was made to go with the splitter. A splitter is a compromise, in my opinion they do work quite well but in a side by side comparison the dedicated antenna will work a little better. Worth the difference; if you operate at the fringe range of reaching help frequently, go for the separate antenna, otherwise the splitter I'm sure will serve you quite well as it does for Blue Water Pirate. I opted for the second antenna primarily because I thought it looked better having more symmetry on the T-top.
Have had one for about 6 years. I can get out better than some of my friends without. Any problems probably due more to better job putting fittings together than to switch.
It would take sophisticated test equipment to answer that question accurately. Without it, we really don't know how well our radios are transmitting. I wouldn't take the chance with safety equipment, use a seperate antenna.
I had mine for two seasons, and no problem on recieving or transmitting.
__________________ "Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll pee on em
Thats what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death
And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard"
-L.Reed
"If you don't like it, go to Russia" -Homer Simpson.
I had one installed on my boat and did some real life testing with it while installed to be sure it wasn't causing any problems.* It did not affect my receive one bit, and did not affect my transmit one bit.* I tested both with another boat a five miles away and simplying listening to any difference connected and not connected.* And then I installed a SWR/Power meter and tested with it inline.* The power output did not change and my SWR's were exactly the same with and without.*
That said, I also tested my FM radio reception, and it had a VERY LITTLE effect. *In other words, it didn't do much in terms of boosting my reception.* It did however boost my TV reception by about 20% (guestimate).* So it did help my TV reception, but did not help my FM reception.**This was in comparison to using the standard "wire" type antenna that comes with most radio's, and mine was just basically thrown in the bulkhead of my hull.* I have since installed a $15 FM rubber ducky antenna West Marine is now selling, and my reception is 50% better for both TV and AM/FM as well as Weather stations (my Jensen CD/AM/FM reciever has weather band on it).*
So the moral of the story is, if installed properly (good tight connections), the splitter will not hurt anything, BUT, it also really doesn't help much either.
I put on a little $8 wire antenna from west marine that just hangs off the radio inside the console. It works great in Key West where our radio reception generally sucks (not the mention the stations suck too...thats why there is an XM tuner also). I couldn't be happier with the little wire antenna though.
The biggest overlooked problem with the splitters is there are 2 diiferent models, one for metal antennas and one for fiberglass. I have used them for years on smaller boats without t-tops and they work flawlessly. Just make sure you get the right splitter and you will be fine.
VHF / FM Radio splitter question 
