This spring we purchased a new Garmin Fantom 18 radar for Sundog.\u00a0 \u00a0For the installation location I read many pages of forum posts debating the topic of mast vs stern pole\/arch mounting.\u00a0 I came to the personal conclusion that there seemed to be no one clear solid choice for the location.\u00a0 There seemed to be equal number of opinions as to which was best.\u00a0 I finally decided to go for the mast mount choice as I preferred it for the radar being up higher for possible range benefits and radiation being away for the crew.\u00a0 I choose was the ScanStrut LMM-1 Self Levelling mast mount since I did want the benefits of the swing when heeled over while sailing.<\/p>\n
This is one of the drawbacks of the mast mount is that I would need to run the power and data connection cables to mast base.\u00a0 The power cable would be “relatively” simple as it would be run from the chart table to the mast base.\u00a0 The data cable would be a harder task as this needed to be run from the chart plotter at the helm all the way to the mast base.<\/p>\n
I started the power cable run as the first task.\u00a0 Looking at how other cables were run I was able to see an existing fiberglass fastened conduit that went from the back of where my battery switches are (the forward seat on the starboard side).\u00a0 I could then see being able to run the power cable behind the game table and other seat to the back of the battery compartment and then to below the chart table.\u00a0 I was able to use a fish tape to get the cable from the mast base through to seat and then over to the battery compartment.\u00a0 That was the difficult portion.\u00a0 Then rest was very simple for getting the cable up to the electrical panel and completing the wiring.\u00a0 I used the AUX 2 position on the electrical panel as I made this available by moving the boat monitor USB power outlet to be permanently on and directly connected to the power bus bar in the panel.<\/p>\n
Pictures below are for the power cable routing.<\/p>\n\n\t\t