Uniden President ship to shore

[tie_one_on]

My Uniden President ship to shore seems to put out a very weak signal. I just put on an new antenna and the results are the same. Anything I can check myself? Thanks

 

[Boatist]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Do not know the radio and could not find on Uniden's web site.<br /><br />Tell us something about the radio.<br />What band does it operate on?<br />What is the Expected Power out?<br />What type antenna do you have?<br />What range did yoy expect

 

[tie_one_on]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Boatist, I'm heading up to the boat today. I'll try to get this info and post back. Thanks for your help.<br /><br />How can I tell the "band" the radio works on?<br />What is meant by "Expected Power"?<br />The antenna is a Shakespear middle grade 8'on a 4' extention.<br />By range do you mean like how far to talk to someone? I'd say 10-15 miles.

 

[ricksrster]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

If it looks like this Uniden President, It is a Ham radio.<br />

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

And if it is a ham radio I would suggest you get a license to operate it. I'm assuming since you don't even know if it's a ham or not that you don't have the correct license.

 

[tie_one_on]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

It's not a ham radio. I bought it about 8 years ago. It's just like this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Unid...hZ002QQitemZ4646977535QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

 

[ricksrster]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

They must not make them anymore. I couldn't find any info on it.

 

[ricksrster]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Hold the music. I looked at the E-bay ad and look up the model number. Uniden has a downloadable owners manaul at http://www.uniden.com/pdf/LTD715om.pdf

 

[tie_one_on]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

thanks ricksrster.<br />Does anybody know of anything I could check or clean on the inside of this? <br />Thanks.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Well, tie one on, I'll tell you the same thing I was told about working on VHF radios. You are supposed to have a radio repair license to even take the cover off. Nothing to check on the inside, other than maybe a loose connection or solder joint, which I seriously doubt.<br /><br />That being said, you really should get a Shakespere SWR/power meter. It fits inline with your antenna and displays SWR and transmit power of the radio. This would be a good way to determine whether your actual signal strength is weak, or your modulation is just way down.<br /><br />The similarity between your post and mine is amazing, and I wasn't offered much technical help.That's understandable considering the fact that it's technically illegal to do anything to the guts of it!

 

[18rabbit]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

To be honest, it may not be worth your time/trouble. Many of the legacy models of Uniden radios were less than sub-std product. The new line of Uniden VHF, however, will go heads up with ICOM and Std Horiz, the longtime premiers of VHF. If/when you decide that VHF isn't doing it for you anymore, maybe you'll want to consider just replacing it. I would.

 

[Boatist]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Sounds like your radio is in the VHF band so the radio is limited to 25 watts of power. <br /><br />With a 8 foot 6db gain antenna mounted on the deck range is about 5 miles. Talking to another similar boat with a 5 mile range means boat to boat is about 10 miles if everything is working perfectly. With a 4 foot extension you may get a extra mile or two. Talking to a shore station like the Coast Guard with their antenna mounted very high the range can be 80 miles or more.<br /><br />Put a standing wave bridge on it and make sure your standing wave ratio is less than 2 to 1. If it not then you likely have a bad antenna or coax. With nothing but the meter you can see if your problem is in the radio or antenna.<br /><br />Before you spend any money on it consider that new radios all have DSC on them. This will some day be a important saftey feature. By hooking up your GPS to the radio and a code number your radio can send out your position and Name to the Coast Guard with the push of a button. All new radios are required to have this feature. Since good radios are quite cheap it is probably not worth working on unless you have equipment to pin point the problem. If it in the radio transmiter then you have to have it repaired by a Tech with the proper licence. That would cost more than a new radio.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Uniden President ship to shore

Before you spend any money on it consider that new radios all have DSC on them.

That is a true statement. Mine is years old, but still in production, the Si-tex Mariner VHF, It doesn't have any kind of DSC feature and I wish it did. It works great though.<br /><br />You can get new ones with DSC for a tick over a hundred. Don't fight your old ones, but I would recommend you try to invest in a SWR/signal strength meter. I've used mine more times than I can count.