Continued Progress on SV Kooky Dance

by the Captain.

I must apologize for the length of time I have ignored the blog.  With both of us working time has not been favorable but this weekend the first mate has to work at the hospital and the weather is crappy outside so I am stuck below with few excuses.  There have been some project completed on the boat so I will cover some of these.

AIS

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) that we chose for Kooky Dance was the Class B transceiver.  My options were a receiver or a transceiver.  The difference is the transceiver transmits and receive vessel information. The AIS includes two antennas; a GPS antenna and a VHF antenna. The central transceiver receives vessel information from ships that are within range of the VHF antenna and transmits SV Kooky Dance information to AIS unit also within range.  The central unit also calculates Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and Time to CPA (TCPA).  Based on the limit you set in the unit the AIS will issue a proximity alarm.  The information the AIS receives include position, course and speed.  It also can display the MMSI and vessel name.  This information will make calling those vessel easier and can facilitate a Digital Selected Calling (DSC).  The beauty of a DSC (if required) is it will set off an alarm on the bridge of the vessel being called that they are legally required to respond to it. 
I had an initial diagnostic failure with the antenna that was cause by a cable mixup but once that was straightened out I started picking up vessels and station at 32.5 nm. 

SSB

We also completed the installation of the SSB radio.  Shown here is just the control head.  The transceiver unit is located on the other side of the boat away from the control panel and away from electronic that may cause interference.  The other unit is the ATU-140 which is the antenna tuning unit and it got located well aft in the lazarette so that it is close to where the antenna lead from the GAM antenna penetrates the hull.  I have tested the weather fax and receiving and all looks good.  I need to read the book some more before I transmit to check transmit power. That test will enable testing the email function over SSB.  More on that later.  I am still having problems getting the SSB to receive the NMEA 183 GPS data.  I had originally planned to hook it up to the AIS and get the GPS data from it however that did not appear to work. 

I bought a Actisence NMEA 183 to USB adapter from NavStore and looked at the data from the AIS.  The data speed was 4800 baud and the sentence format was as expected from the AIS however the ICOM 802 SSB would not capture and display the Lat &Long.
We have an ICOM marine VHF radio that receives the GPS data from the Furuno chart plotter so I hooked the ICOM 802 SSB radio input into the same connection.  Still nothing.  I reconnected the computer to the same connection and read all the correct data.  I am stumped as to what the problem is.  I am, however, determined to get it working.  The SSB has the functionality to send out a distress signal at the push of a bottom that will light up the SSB radios that are within range.  That range can be thousands of miles and will include my position.  Odds are someone will hear it.    I hope I never need that function but I would like the peace of mind that it will work if needed.  It would a bad feeling if you are floating out in the middle of the ocean on a life boat with little chance of being spotted and thinking; "I sure wish I had gotten the distress signaler to work on the SSB".  I am at the point of hiring some professionals at $95/hr to figure this out but I have a feeling they don't know anything that I don't but it will be worth a little money to find that out. 

Battery Monitor

I also installed a Xantrex linkPro battery monitor.   It installation was pretty simple.  I have not had much need for it while tied to the dock where the batteries stay charged up from shore power.  I will likely test the batteries for full capacity before we leave in Oct of this year.  They will be 5 years old by them and it may be time to replace them.  The last batteries in our previous boat lasted 8 yrs before they had to be replaced and it was actually a faulty charger that ruined hem by boiling them dry.

Long Distance WIFI

We also installed a long distance WIFI antenna.  It is a RogueWave power over Ethernet antenna.  Without the antenna my computer picks up only the wifi from the marina with 1 or 2 bars.  With the RogueWave antenna I pick up about a dozen wireless networks and all bars on the marina wireless.

I think I will end this post on the electronics.  I will do another post on the power generation equipment and another to additional changes to the deck gear.  After that the First mate and I may do one on an RO watermaker.  We have different opinions on the subject.