The Continuing SSB Saga

My original estimate of having a four day weekend to install this thing was off by the speed of light.  First of all, a four day weekend does not necessarily mean there's 8 hours per day available to work on projects.  With everyday chores and unforeseen priorities I'm probably lucky to get in four hours per day.   Besides, everything I do takes at least twice as long as I originally thought it would.  Maybe even twice that.
 
I went back at it this weekend and pulled the cables through to the cockpit locker on the starboard side.  I want to install the antenna tuner there because we're using the starboard side backstay for the antenna and we need to keep the high voltage wire as short as possible.  After I got the cables pulled I spent some time looking around for a good mounting location for the antenna tuner.  I needed a spot about 8" x 16", a good piece of real estate on a boat.  Plus it had to be where the HV wire wouldn't run near any other wiring because this could induce noise into other systems.  This is a pretty high powered radio.  I've heard stories about people keying the mike and the lights in the cabin would flash, electric toilets would flush, etc, etc.  I don't think we need that kind of entertainment.  Let's see now, we've got the wiring for shore power running through from here to there and the wiring for the genset goes over there.  Oh yeah, all that wire over there is for the auto pilot.  There was plenty of space on the inside of the hull but there's too much wiring it would have to cross and it's further away from the backstay than I wanted to be.  I ended up settling on an overhead spot tucked up inside the cockpit coaming.  I cut out a board and pre-drilled it to mount the tuner.  Glopped it up with 5200 and used gorilla tape to hold it in place on the fiberglass until everything dries.  In this 20 degree weather that'll probably take a few days before I can mount the tuner.

With that delay in mind I went below to the Nav Station and concentrated on the power for the transceiver.  This is mounted in a cabinet directly over the batteries for the house bank.  Perfect!  I plan to run power directly from the batteries instead of through the breaker panel to keep out any stray noise.  I'm mounting 40 amp blade fuses just downstream from the batteries, one on each leg (+ and -).  Up at the radio there's a 30 amp fuse on the + side but the bigger fuses will protect the wiring (fingers crossed, knock on wood, swing a chicken over my head, etc, etc) in the event of a nearby lightning strike.  I'm running #8 wire from the batteries up to the transceiver.  It comes with what looks like #10 wire so we'll mount a terminal block up there right next to it to make the connection.  That way we'll have maximum diameter wire for most of the run to give us maximum voltage and minimum noise.

I also worked on finishing up the wiring at the transceiver.  In the kit there is a pile of RF "chokes", ferrite clips, that are used to inhibit stray RF in order to reduce noise in the system.  These get placed on cables connected to the transceiver by placing a loop in the wire and then snapping the choke in place.  I ended up removing pretty much everything I had done last weekend to re-do the cables.  I also found that after I installed the choke on the control cable for the antenna tuner I no longer had enough wire length to plug it back in to the transceiver.  Now I hafta pull some back from the cockpit locker.  Grrr.  One step forward, two steps back.

  While I was at it I also added some chafe protection where the wires pass through the bulkheads.  I used split plastic wire loom, 3/4", and forced it around the inside edges of the holes I had cut out with a hole saw.  Even with everything tied down firmly there's a chance the wire will wear against the hard surface, especially where I had cut through fiberglass.  This is good insurance.

That part back in the beginning where I went on and on about how I never have enough time to get anything done?  Uhm, gee, go figure.  On Friday I was climbing off the boat, literally.  The wind had been blowing ferociously out of the NW for about four days and the water level in our creek had dropped about 4'.  To get off the boat we had to climb up one of the pilings to get up to the decking of the dock.  Once I got up on my feet I looked out over the marina and saw a huge column of smoke rising above the masts.  At the same time I heard sirens coming in from all over the place.  At first I thought the smoke was coming from Calypso, a local bar that's been closed for renovation.  Oh no, not the rum!  I later found out it was actually a house across the street.  Bummer.  I mean, it would have been bad either way but I hate to see someones home go up in smoke.  Still, there's something beyond fascination about a fire.  This one had equipment come in from miles away, as far away as Bowie.  There musta been twenty fire trucks out there.  Slow day at the VFD's I guess.  They set up a pumper in the marina at the haul-out ramp.  That little operation alone drew quite a crowd.  There was fire equipment everywhere.  They had so many fire trucks respond to this fire that they had to close the road off at Rte 2, about 3 miles down the road.  Anyway, I managed to waste quite a bit of time scoping out all the action.  Didn't get back to the boat for quite a while.  Still can't figure out why all my projects take so long.