October 29, 2000 -- Electronics debates

We started out this morning talking about our wish list for the boat electronics, and how we should and would go about obtaining our wish list. One of the things that we want is for our B&G information to be able to go to our nav computer; currently it does not. Mike said that he could do it. I retorted that I would let him try, if and only if he was capable of getting our GPS to Auto Pilot to radar way point display working again. It works, currently, with the computer supplying the way point information. It used to work either way. We lost that capability almost two years ago when we were bringing the boat up from West Palm Beach the first time. A setting was changed in the Auto Pilot somewhere, and we haven't been able to figure it out yet. While I put coat three on the new teak in the aft, Mike worked on the GPS problem. He called me up to demonstrate that the problem was taken care of. I entered a new way point, and selected it as destination, and it did not transfer to the radar. When we switched back to Mike's way point it showed up. There is definitely some kind of black magic voodoo thing happening. Mike finally relented and agreed to hand this problem over to an electronics company on the condition that we get full wiring diagrams of anything they do. We spent the rest of the day watching movies. What can I say, when it's cold, you want to snuggle under a blanket, eat popcorn and watch movies! We ran the generator overnight because the temperatures hit the mid thirties