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How To Wire Up a New Marine Radio

Well it must be "how to" season as I'm starting to hear from many of our readers and they have a broad range of questions from the complex, to the seemingly simple. A few day's ago a fellow named Ed sent us a query that seems pretty simple. Here it is: “hi Ed- i have to add lights and a radio to my boat. i have the switch and fuse box but i dont know about the neg and the ground wire connection.”

basic dc wiring _001_3721.jpg

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Well it must be “how to” season as I’m starting to hear from many of our readers and they have a broad range of questions from the complex, to the seemingly simple. A few day’s ago a fellow named Ed sent us a query that seems pretty simple. Here it is:

“hi Ed- i have to add lights and a radio to my boat. i have the switch and fuse box
but i dont know about the neg and the ground wire connection.”

Ed

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Ok other Ed. What you really need to do here is simple. You need to go to the Amazon button on my home page and order up a nice fresh copy of my book entitled “The Powerboater’s Guide to Electricity“. The book will answer the question above and much, much more. Lots of pictures too. One that helps to answer at least a part of other Ed’s basic question is shown here:

![](http://www.edsboattips.com/images/stories/basic dc wiring _001.jpg)

The figure in the lower left hand corner that got clipped off editing the picture size for use on the web is indicating what we would call the negative bus bar.

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If Ed will write back with a little more detail about his boat, I can answer his question in a bit more detail. As for your sailboat owners, don’t be turned off by the title of the book. The techniques contained within the book work really well on sailboats too. Honest, the electricity doesn’t know or care what kind of boat its on!  😉

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