Engine room insulation, SSB ground, nav station mock-up
Things are getting exciting now! Shiny, new things are being installed. The engine room is almost done, re-insulated with top-quality, lead-and-foam insulation that makes the engine room look like a disco. Neil's made sturdy, epoxied shelves and mounting plates for the pumps, new charger, etc. We've also laid out the new copper foil for the SSB RF ground against the bare hull under the starboard settee and in the nav area. That entailed quite a bit of research.... there's no one "right way" to install the counterpoise. Some people use the lead keel as the main ground, others tie in every piece of underwater metal they can find...still others prefer to keep the RF ground separate from the DC ground and lighting ground systems. That's my preference. Even if you install capacitators in the foil, there's bound to be some stray current leakage somewhere that will eventually cause problems. We're lucky in that we've exposed fairly large areas of hull below the waterline where we can lay the foil. Most experts agree that with the new radios and tuners, the 100 square feet of ground that was previously recommended is overkill. We'll probably have about 70 square feet, and it'll be entirely separate from the other ground systems. If we decide it's not enough at some later point, it'll be easy to tie a keel bolt in as well.
On Saturday we had a thrilling day: we mocked up the nav station out of cardboard. this was a big step: the building is about to commence. Very exciting!