Hog Island Walkabout

This morning started off with a bit of success. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that a part of a cruisers life is spent troubleshooting and/or fixing things. I have been keeping the trivial stuff out of the blog as it gets a bit boring I think. However, recently I discovered I could get significantly better reception on some of my side band radio bands by turning off the 12V supply to my ships ‘brain’. I had gone further by switching off every single power outlet and breaker coming out of the brain box and that would not lower the interference. I was under the assumption that the motherboard itself was the cause.

I had mentioned this to Jim previously and he offered to take a look. I took him through what I had done so far and Jim, rather obviously, asked my what else the 12V supply I was turning off was connected to. “Only the water maker,” was my reply. So we turned that off (even though it was running) and hey presto, the interference dropped. I kick myself as this is the sort of question I ask others but needed Jim today to help me through the obvious. We further determined that connecting the SSB chassis to the water maker chassis also eliminated the noise without having to turn the water maker off.

So now I have another summer project to properly connect the two chassis. For now I know to switch off the water maker to stop any interference.

Just after Jim left Helen and I went for a walk around Hog Island. There is a road that winds through the island and the east and south borders have been sectioned into plots although nothing bar a bridge to the island has been built. The prime spot on the end of the island appealed to us the most. We were able to get down to the shore in places and walk on wind/sea eroded rocks. I took my hand held GPS stuck into my hat for good reception. Here is the track and pics from our trip.