The Radio Blues

What do HF radios, antennas, and salt water have in common? Answer, the ability to drive me absolutely nuts. The past few days we have been experiencing intermittent tuning problems with our HF radio. As this is the SOLE communication we have with family and friends, not to mention our source of weather information, this has been of some concern. This morning, I lost the ability to tune the antenna at all. For you non radio type people out there (ok the majority of you) you have to put this box between your antenna and your radio that does magical things so that you HAM radio will think you have a great big antenna available to you. Techromancy is a good term here. Anyhow, I spent ALL DAY working though the complete radio system, antenna, connector wires, antenna tuner, main radio, remote head unit, everything I could think of. I did find a few suspect pieces and each time I fixed what I found, I thought "great, that's fixed then" only to be horribly disappointed when it still didn't work. By 5 PM local time (00:00 UTC) I gave up and decided to try again tomorrow. I listened in on one of the informal radio nets that we talk on and on a whim, tried to call to one of the boats. I got through. That was somewhat of a relief, it's nice to know someone could hear us. I was also able to talk to one of the other boats on that net, Nataraja, with Eric and Emmy aboard. Eric has installed and trouble shot a few of these radios so I described the problem to him. His first guess was that the insulators on the backstay that separate the antenna from the rest of the boat were breaking down, apparently a common occurrence. He suggested a few trouble shooting ideas that I noted for tomorrow (later today). He also said that a conductive film could build up on the surface of the insulator that effectively shorted it out. I again noted that one down. I then talked to our friends David and Linda and if worst came to worst, I would heave to until they caught up and then sail with them in VHF range the rest of the way. A generous offer and a good plan if needed. Meanwhile Cathy started making dinner and decided to grab a rag and carefully wipe down the insulator. It was covered in salt. After I got it cleaned, I turned on the radio and it tuned right up. I SPENT ALL DAY CRAWLING AROUND THE BOAT, TAKING THINGS APART AND PUTTING THEM BACK TOGETHER AND ALL I HAD TO DO IN THE END WAS WIPE OF A LAYER OF SALT LADEN MOISTURE FROM THE LOWER INSUALTER ON OUR BACKSTAY!!!!!!!!! I was both very happy and really pissed off at the same time, all day, oh well, what else would I have done. If Rob is reading this, the situation should sound really familiar, think Volkswagen rabbit and UWO!
Other than that it has been another great sailing day and the forecast is for ideal conditions that should see us across the equator and into the SE trades. If the radio is still working, I will send this out, if not………

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