Vhf on boat won’t transmit, tx light comes on but other boats cant hear me. Where should I start?
Find somebody with a known good mic that you can test it with.
Also could be a power issue (bad ground, loose connection, rusty wires). It takes a lot more power to transmit than to listen to incoming.
If those aren’t it, it could be something inside the box. If its the radio itself, you’ll probably be better off buying a new one.
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
Does the antenna ground through the mount? When got home I noticed the horizontal adjustment part of the ratchet mount was loose. Would this cause the problem?
A loose antenna could certainly cause problems.
Semper Fi
18’ Sterling
115 Yamaha
Big Ugly Homemade Blue Push Pole
quote:
Originally posted by harly07Does the antenna ground through the mount? When got home I noticed the horizontal adjustment part of the ratchet mount was loose. Would this cause the problem?
No. It shouldn’t be grounded through the mount.
RF cabling has a center conductor and a shield. Corrosion is the likely culprit here.
Get a multimeter, set to read ohms, put one lead on the rf outside shell plugged into your vhf, put the other lead on the negative battery terminal. If you have less than an ohm, continuity is good and your problem exists elsewhere. If ohms are high or even open, then you need to fix your cable. (Either it’s the cable connected to your antenna or its a ground cable coming from the battery to your panel, you’ll have to troubleshoot and find out which one is bad) Cut your connector off and re-terminate with another pl-59 connector. These are available at radio shack, probably west marine too.
If you can’t do this yourself, Chris v could likely do it in less than ten minutes if you’re nice to him. 
Had a similar problem earlier this year, I could hear people but couldn’t get out. Took radio to Mt. Pleasant radio and they tuned it and works great now.
Thanks for the info, checked the plug on the cable it was loose put a new one on. Waiting on my handheld to come in the mail so I can see if it works.