28TE Forward mounted radar
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:40 am
I winter store in a building with an overhead door clearance that my 28TE barely clears with the aft radar arch removed. I'm using a Furuno TZTouch2 this year and near the end of the season added the NXT radar.
Since I don't fish we don't need the aft arch for rod mounts and I decided to make the process easier by switching to a smaller mast mounted radar forward.
The NXT radar comes with a short pigtail cable that worked well with installing the mast where the hole in the base is just forward of the windshield. There's room in the cable run in the overhead for the radar cable and it's fed out forward and above the center windshield where it connects to the pigtail from the mast base.
I had a base fabricated with studs for the removable mast base to be attached. The base will stay in place and after disconnecting the radar cable and 4 nuts for the mast base, the radar, mast and cable all lift off easily and the boat is ready to move into the storage building.
I had a stub of pipe welded to the base that sticks up inside the mast far enough to prevent water intrusion so there's no need to caulk between the two bases. The only caulking was for the base that stays permanently in place.
Here are pictures:
Since I don't fish we don't need the aft arch for rod mounts and I decided to make the process easier by switching to a smaller mast mounted radar forward.
The NXT radar comes with a short pigtail cable that worked well with installing the mast where the hole in the base is just forward of the windshield. There's room in the cable run in the overhead for the radar cable and it's fed out forward and above the center windshield where it connects to the pigtail from the mast base.
I had a base fabricated with studs for the removable mast base to be attached. The base will stay in place and after disconnecting the radar cable and 4 nuts for the mast base, the radar, mast and cable all lift off easily and the boat is ready to move into the storage building.
I had a stub of pipe welded to the base that sticks up inside the mast far enough to prevent water intrusion so there's no need to caulk between the two bases. The only caulking was for the base that stays permanently in place.
Here are pictures: