Two hours afloat and too many things to say.

This radar installation confirmed my sense that radar beams can't see through aluminum pipes. This wasn't something I was so curious about that I would expend valuable energy in trying to test, but now I have some empirical evidence to back up my hunch. 

This was two hours of owner training on a shiny new boat. Like all things I do, it seems my eye has a proclivity to spot other things and events to talk about and today was no different. The radar problem was evident as I walked up to the boat. It's a FUBAR install. It's not my work and I can't do anything about it today so the training will go on anyway.

I try to beat the basics into owners. My approach is to make the owner push all of the buttons, and we are going to do some things over and over until it starts to approach second nature. Make waypoints, name waypoints and go to waypoints. Make tracks, save tracks, name tracks and follow tracks. You get the drill. Add to this autopilot 101 use, and a stern lecture that bad things can happen if you do dumb things with the autopilot at high speeds. In extreme cases you could end up precipitously leaving the boat and watching it recede into the distance while you contemplate all of the mistakes you have made in your life, this last one in particular. I cut this educational activity off at about two hours max. It's all normal mortals can absorb in one shot.

Radar Rx

It's not op art, only a cheesy replica of a radar screen image I get to see on occasion. In reality it's pretty close to what the screen actually looks like. This image has two likely sources. If it's a reasonably clear image the array is not turning, and you're seeing an image from one direction only. If the image is noisy another possible scenario is you have a lot of condensation on the inside of the radar dome.

In this case the little domed Furuno array was not turning. Opening the dome and seeing the drive belt disconnected immediately conjured the insight that if the belt was put back in place, the array would turn, and the problem would go away. This proved to be the case, for a few seconds at any rate.

Pretty picture, oops concentric circles again. The dome gets re-opened, and I take a closer look. The belt is off again, and when I looked closely at the little DC motor drive gear, I found it was loose.