Radar

Jerry and his colleague visited the boat this afternoon to investigate my radar problem. They had a replacement cable with them. I powered up the unit to demonstrate that it was failing with a "No Data" message. Jerry went up the mast, removed the radome cover which he handed to me, and connected the new cable. We passed the new cable through the main hatch then he connected it up to the C120. We powered the C120 and the radar was working with the new cable.

Before Jerry disconnected the old cable from the radome he had noticed that the white wire was loose from the connector, and he inserted it back it. So after the successful test with the new cable he went up and reconnected the old cable with the white wire in place and we tried the C120 again but still had the "No Data" notice from the radar. Jerry had one look at the connection at the base of the mast where the cable had been split and said that there was no problem with that. He's pretty sure that the loose white wire is for data but there must be something else going on.

The fundamental question was (1) should we go to the trouble of fitting in the new cable, which is an involved process because we must pass the thick cable around some tight bends and up the mast conduit or (2) should he work on the connector in the radome and get the old cable working. Because the old cable is in conduit in its run down the mast and the section inside the boat is in a benign environment it is unlikely that there is anything wrong with the cable itself, in my humble opinion.

Jerry decided that he will return to rework the connector inside the radome. He left the new cable on Pachuca just in case.

The good news of today was:

1. The scanner in the radome is OK, and there is no evidence of invasion of water
2. Raymarine checked the information that I had given to Jerry and I am fully covered by the Raymarine 2-year warranty.