Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

I arrived home today to be greeted by packages.  These are always fun moments and in particular, given what I am awaiting, this got pretty exciting.  Arrived today was my SSB (the ICOM M802 + AT140 auto tuner) and my sextant.  The radio gear was unpacked and looked at.  Actual contact must await the weekend.  I know I don’t have all the bits yet but now I have some of the gear I can cast my mind to how / where I’m going to set it up.  I haven’t yet thought about an antenna.  This will need some research / preparation.  Now, perhaps, is the time to draw on my recently acquired HAM knowledge.  The sextant was more readily playable.  The one I have ordered is the Astra IIIb.  Midrange pricewise which is usually where I find price/performance to work out the best.  I only had to screw in the eyepiece.  I was able to determine the index error as measured using the top of my laptop as an artificial horizon.  This will give me an obvious error in my error assessment due to near distance parallax.  (Am I showing off cos I read a little theory recently?)  I then measured the altitude of a light relative to my laptop then got bored.  Now I need to find some more realistic practice scenarios.

This week I opened up the conversation with the engineers at CatCo to extending the electrical capabilities of Dignity. Specifically I am looking to install an inverter/charger to provide 110V from the house batteries as well as the capability to charge the house batteries from shore power. We already have the latter capability but this is indirect through charging the 72V battery banks and cross charging the house bank. If we ever leave Dignity for a week or two in a marina I want to isolate as much of the electrical circuits as possible for obvious reasons. I also want to put on board a compatible MPPT unit in readiness for installing solar cells sometime. MPPTs are the latest thing in battery charging from solar / wind. They can take a higher voltage than the battery and make effective use of the power. This will allow me to put my cells in series and run my power lines at a higher voltage which is more efficient.

Whether this can be accomplished or not I don’t know. One requirements is for an inverter capable of running an electric dive tank compressor. We have space on Dignity for an extensive solar array and I like the idea of being able to fill my own tanks using power from sun, wind and/or regeneration while sailing. Even if it’s one or two tanks per day – that would be fine. It’s just a question of making use of surplus power.

On a separate front I have decided to buy the single side band radio early. I’ll be shopping around for an ICOM M802 this weekend with all the accompanying bits. I started my search last night. I am tempted by Landfall Navigations all in one email SSB package but on the face of it it looks like I can get a better deal sourcing the parts individually. It may take more effort and more troubleshooting installing but the learning aspect will be improved which is the main reason for buying early. KC2RIY may finally get on air in the next few weeks.  Before I go further with this we’ve got to do our taxes.  Yach.