Reading the instructions for the installation of Raymarine wireless base
station, the location seems a difficult choice. It states that the device
must be dry, vertical and no closer than one meter from anything magnetic
(compass, speakers, etc.) Has anyone had one successfully installed with
less than complete compliance with all that?

The alternative is to use a seatalk cable in excess of six feet. Does
anyone know if there is a limit on the cable length?

On our 34' boat the autopilot computer is installed on the port side, beside
the stairs. The seatalk cable runs down from the helm, back to the engine
compartment inside the starboard gunwale, across the engine compartment and
all the way back up the port gunwale to the computer. Distance isn't a
terribly big issue apparently.

Of course, it managed to fail and spew corrupted seatalk packets onto the
network. So I spliced the seatalk cable at the computer, taking it out of
the loop. This doubled the length of the cable and the other seatalk
devices (gps, nmea bridge) still work fine.

What sort of boat are you installing this into? And where are your other
components?

-Bill Kearney