Day 290 Back it goes.

I played with the multiplexer for a while hooking and unhooking the wires from the GPS and wind instrument that I needed to come together into one electronic stream of info for the autopilot.  No good.  It will read the wind instrument but not the GPS.  As a matter of fact, the GPS has apparently stopped transmitting at all through the wire that it had used.  I hooked it back to exactly where it had come off of on the autopilot and there was no reading by the autopilot that it was getting any information at all as it had before I connected it to the multiplexer.

I called the company that sold it to me and they told me to call the manufacturer(pass the buck).  I talked to NoLand Electronics and they were stumped.  Claimed it just couldn't happen.  Yeah, right.  It had happened to me!  All they could recommend was hooking up a computer to the multiplexer and see if it reads anything--like I have that kind of equipment.  Afraid not.

I called Gemeco(retailer) back and talked to them again.  They agreed to take it back.  So while it's not a big deal, I can still read the information from the wind instrument on the autopilot(really great) and there is still the main GPS display in the cockpit(would have fed off of it to the autopilot).  I can still see the GPS while on deck, it just won't come up on the autopilot.  I don't really care.  It would have been nice but the GPS signal doesn't steer the boat.  The autopilot will steer using the information it gets from its compass and from the information from the wind instrument.  Those are the important things.  Since it doesn't work, I don't really need this expensive multiplexer.  So back it went.

Other than that, we ran a few errands around town--Costco, Wendy's, USPS, IRS, and Safeway.

I took the brass slide(to be used to clean out the Strong Track on the mast) up to the shop above the marina office and started grinding it down along its sides.  They offered me the use of their shop while we are here.  Nice people.  I ground and filed and after getting back to Zephyr still have more to take off to get it into the slide so I can clean out the track.  I'm about to head off to start on it.

Our new TV antenna is due in today so we should be able to get reception while out on anchor when we can't use the satellite dish.  I'm going to try and figure out a way to get it hoisted up into the rigging so it will get a better signal.

Another day living the dream!!