As previously discussed our radar had decided to go topless with predictable results to its reliability. Again I'm drawn to similar narratives in high school. During engine repairs Jason and I had agreed to sell the other their working half of their radar, but we had not decided who was who yet. Jason was stoked to get his new chartplotter so now he was on a boat electronics bender. Drugs might be cheaper. He agreed to sell me his dome for a few hundred bucks.
As it turns out his was kind of a Frankenstein unit already. A refitter had had a stack of these domes and Jason was able to choose among them for the best. Below is a shot of the innards. It's amazing that this technology has gone from secret, war-winning, cost is no object technology to commercially commonplace in 75 years, with new features needed to get people to upgrade. Below is a picture of the inside of Jason's dome. Ours looked like a bucket of rust.
As a part of the deal Jason did the install as well. My tubby butt wasn't going up the mast. He removed the dome from his boat and headed over to ours. Up he went with Water Bob manning the lines because I had tweeked my back. Water Bob and his three (and a half) legged dog had delivery of water to boats in the lagoon as one of his many jobs while he racked up hours towards his captain license.
After some connection iterations the box at the binnacle started to recognize the dome. A few more restarts and they were fast friends. We had planned to try and swap out the tri-color light with an LED, and the anchor light with a automatic LED, but that didn't get done this time because the parts weren't available at the local West Marine. Next time.
But now we have radar again. Although we don't need it during the bright daylight of southern Florida we've been running it to get more used to the info it provides. Imagine if you saw things using only light that originated from you, and that you could only see the first object the light contacted, maybe. The world looks a little different that way. It's better than nothing in the dark and fog.
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