[Anonymous]

Hi all, does anyone have any tips on testing the alternator output?
I think that I am getting either power spikes or drop offs and these are causing issues with my VHF.
Steve

[Anonymous]

Alternator testers are quite specialized bits of kit – I used to design them some years ago. You could try connecting an analogue volt meter to the output of the alternator and look for kicks in the voltage to see if that happens – better than using a digital voltmeter which may miss things like that.
Other things such as a battery monitor – NASA BM1 or whatever – tend to be slow to react and so probably wouldn’t help.
You could also connect the voltmeter to the power line at the VHF itself and see what is happening there but I would have thought that the service battery would itself smooth things out.
Otherwise you are looking at another source of interference or maybe aerial connection problems.

[Anonymous]

Do you have an aerial splitter ?
They often break down causing probs with vhf.
Disconnected mine and all ok now.

[Anonymous]

” wrote:

Otherwise you are looking at another source of interference or maybe aerial connection problems?

Do you have an aerial splitter ?
They often break down causing probs with vhf.

That’s interesting as my AIS does use a VHF splitter…hmmmm
I wonder if something like an old SWR meter could be used to diagnose it?

[Author]

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