March 30

Tortilla sandwich for lunch. That's right, no bread making today. Maybe tomorrow. Had "The Tailor of Panama" by John le Carre to attend to plus a few other odds and ends.

After doing a little sleuthing of poor SSB transmissions with Whoosh, discovered poor sound on all bands except 12 meg. Hmmmmm. Robert on Bristol Rose suggested it sounded like tuner trouble. Hmmmmm. It's pure arrogance to explain a technical problem for which there is no knowledge, so here goes. (Warning!!! Simplistic and likely incorrect technological bullsh... ummm, information to follow). Frequency is a function of antenna length. For example, 10 MHz is the 30 meter band so those waves are 90 odd feet wide and ideally would require a 90 odd foot antenna. Anthem's insulated backstay comes up short, so to speak, so a tuner is lashed into the system to fool all those little electron thingies (little used scientific term) into seeing the correct size (in other words size only matters if you don't lie). Shut down all noisy stuff to listen and... no tuning! Hark, I thought I heard a pistol shot... No wait, that's part of a naughty joke. Anyway, may have found problem. Will begin, tomorrow, with two favorite repair techniques, hammer method and bigger hammer method.

Mostly had decent wind helped by rain showers west. Boat speed varied from 7 knots to zero. Higher end of range preferable, although a quarter ton of provisions should hold off emaciation until west flowing current would eventually float the boat close enough to motor in, probably.

Jack