AIS installation, Navtex aerial and PA Foghorn
Minka of Southampton - Cruising Log
Edmund Wigan
Wed 3 Mar 2010 17:40
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Well that's the list for today. Not quite true as I
fitted the AIS last night. I see the layout of the blog is no better so I will
try a different experiment with this one.
AIS
 Not a good picture but Minka is the tiny circle in
the middle of the bottom of the screen. The tight group of ships to the left and
a little above are the vessels in Gijon harbour. If you click on a ship it tells
you all about it. The vessel to the right is doing 10kts on a course of 100
degrees going to Bilbao. The GPS feed for this is mounted inside the cupboard
above behind the plotter. This is cheating but it seems to be doing the job and
as you will see later I am running out of room for more mushroom aerials on the
solar panel frame. The next photo gives an idea of the chart table
layout.
 From the right at the bottom is the Furuno Navtex,
then A Furuno GP 32 GPS which feeds the Raymarine RL70C chartplotter, next is
the Simrad AIS and then my laptop which is linked to the Iridium phone for
emails. The large display in the middle is the chartplotter and above that
another Furuno GP32 GPS which feeds the Yeoman chart plotter, the Standard
Horizon DSC VHF transceiver and the B&G instruments including the Autohelm.
The Turkish carpet is on the chart table to protect it whilst I was doing the
fitting work to save the varnish getting damaged.
The Furuno Navtex aerial got decapitated by the
wind generator in Biscay and today I fitted the new aerial. The Navtex picks up
weather forecasts from preset stations. It also has loads of other stuff about
gunnery exercises and tells me the French have been setting off torpedos
today.
 In the centre of the photo you can see three
mushrooms. They are now out of reach of the wind generator. The large one is the
new Navtex aerial and the other two are for the Furuno GPS receivers. Below the
big mushroom is the PA/Foghorn/Loudhailer. The VHF transceiver has the capacity
for linking to a loudhailer. This means I can shout at people using the radio
mike. It can also be used as an automatic foghorn putting out the appropriate
pattern of sounds depending on what we are doing. There is also a siren function
so you can pretend to be a police boat. I have had wonderful fun testing this
out in the marina. Slightly embarrassing to start with as I read the
instructions on how to start it but couldn't figure out how to turn it
off.
That's it for today except I found another photo
from the top of the mast from yesterday.
 The weather has broken a little and we have had
gentle showers today. Thanks to my new wind instrument I can say the wind hasn't
exceeded 8kts. I probably have another two or three days of jobs to do before I
leave here. So subject to the weather I shall leave on Sunday. Not thought where
I am going yet but probably Cudillero which is a nice day sail west towards
Coruna.
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