Winter Maintenance in London #5

Hi everyone,
This month we've attended to an array of small tasks.

• Cabin & Cockpit Lights
• Liferaft Mount
• Breather tubes
• HF/SSB Tests

Liferaft and Cockpit Lights

Cabin and Cockpit Lights

Our cabin lights are about 10 years old and some of them are fading away.  We found a nickel-finish light we liked and so set to work buying and fitting them.  We ended up with one over each saloon berth, one in the nav station, one in the quarter berth and two in the galley.  They're a big improvement.

One of the galley lights was fitted over a hole vacated by an old speaker.  We also wanted to fit cockpit lights where speakers previously lived.  All three needed circular panels cut to cover the holes.  The Dremel did a great job cutting them using a radius arm.  We used a drill with hole-cutter for smaller panels for some of the lights.

Cutting circular panel with the Dremel

Galley Light

Saloon Light

NavStation Light

The cockpit lights are from NaviSafe.  They mount magnetically and have various settings.  The housing glows dimly in the dark which may be helpful.

Cockpit Light in place of Speaker

Breather Tubes

This was a long overdue task.  The breather tubes from the water tanks and the fuel tanks run up to the deck where a s/s fitting connects through the deck and up into a stanchion.  They allow air into the tanks as their contents are used.  The old hoses from the water tank were black with mould, so they definitely needed changing!

New Breather Hoses

Liferaft Mounting

We had been thinking of mounting the liferaft on the transom.  In the end we decided to leave it in the cockpit to keep the option of fitting a wind vane open.  We purchased a s/s liferaft cradle and fitted it so the liferaft is a few inches above the cockpit sole.

HF/SSB Tests

We are gradually experimenting with our new Icom IC7300 transceiver.

We tested our transmit power using an RF Current Meter.  The meter clamps around the antenna feed line and measures the actual transmit current.  While transmitting a 100W tone we measured 30A at 3.5MHz, 45A at 7 MHz and 90A at 14MHz.  I need to do some research to turn that into power at the antenna.

In actual usage the radio is performing very well, especially considering we're in a marina and surrounded by apartment blocks.  So far we've spoken with amateur stations in Orkney (450nm north) and Southern Italy (900nm south).  Both were loud and clear and reported we were too - "5 by 9" in amateur-speak.