Radar OK

Jerry phoned me early this morning and said that he was visiting the boat to have a go at getting the cable problem sorted out. He went up the mast and did some work on the termination block. He said that the wire ends were somewhat corroded and asked if the cable had been in the weather before it was actually installed. I said that it was entirely possible. He did what he could then we powered up the system and still "no data". He decided to swap out the entire cable.

He tied a cord to the end of the cable and we dropped it down the conduit, then around the bend at the deck level, then into the cabin. He asked how the cable was passed inside the boat. I told him that my philosophy was to sacrifice beauty and aesthetics in favor of practicality. The cabling was straight forward and accessible, even if it meant sections of cable runs visible from inside the cabin. He approved.

Jerry took off the terminator of the radome end of the cable then we threaded the entire thing from the C120 chart plotter, along the cabin to the mast, into the mast, through the deck and around the conduit that takes the cable around the mast step, then up the conduit to the top.

Then we powered up the system and the radar was working.

The Jerry helped me sort out a "Seatalk Failure" messaged that I was getting when I powered up the auto pilot. He tracked it down to two dangling Seatalk wires that had come loose during my preparations for the new HF radio.

Jerry left at 12.30 PM after about 3 hours on the boat. I am supposed to pay for any time in excess of 4 hours, and given that he and his son had spent one hour on board on their first visit I would expect to get billed for some excess time. I told Jerry to add up the time and let me know if I owed him anything but I get the feeling that I won't be billed for anything.

On the brighter side:

1. Raymarine verified my warranty rights and did not give me any difficulties with the repair. They are back in my good books. I got a bit sour on them regarding my problems with the ST60 wind instrument.
2. The mast steps were extremely helpful. Several times Jerry commented on how easy it was to get to the radome, compared to most boats where he had to work from a boatsun's chair. He was able to stand on the first crosstrees and work in relative comfort.
3. As I indicated earlier, the simple and practical routing of the cable inside the cabin saved us a lot of time.