BoatBanter.com - Follow Me TV

Wayne.B wrote:

On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 04:15:22 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

We have one, and got it on the advice of other cruisers. Works well,
although we haven't used it much because we don't anchor all that
much.

=================

When you are at a dock, will it find the proper bearing automatically,
or do you have to manually align it?

Even at anchor, you probably need to move it until you find the proper
signal. Then it will lock onto that bearing and keep it. Bob says it
is much easier to look at the compass to find out which way is 240 and
initially swing it yourself. He turns up the tone on the TV loud
enough so that he can hear it and turns it to the bearing, then based
on the tone he sets the tilt.

[He watched the technician set the dish up on the boat, and then when
we moved it to the house, we mounted the dish on the chimney (two
story house - middle chimney in this picture on the back of the house)
http://p.vtourist.com/2320161-1930s_...eonardtown.jpg
He went up the ladder with the cell phone, and mounted it and called
me on the cell phone where I was inside with the TV to get the best
signal.]

At the dock, he will often just look around to see which way other
people's antennas are pointed. He says he does occasionally use the
Follow Me in the dock if the boat is moving around a lot.

I sometimes help him by shouting out the number of bars, but usually
just opening a hatch does it -- we do have a center cockpit boat and
the follow-me is over the aft cabin which has a deck hatch right next
to the antenna mount.

He has the follow-me on one side of the scuba bottle box. The only
picture I have of that is a part of a larger set of photos (the third
set showing modifications of the boat) which is at
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shar...BEC1BBDF&cb=PW

It is the 8th picture in the set. In position on the follow-me, it
interferes with the swinging of the boom, so he de mounts it before we
get underway and it is stored on the other side of that box.

It has happened that 240 degrees was directly to the port side of the
boat, and the boom completely kept the dish from receiving a signal.
So in that case, he just left the dish in the stowed position on the
other side of the box. Incidentally, a big power boat coming into the
next slip did not even cause a flicker in the signal.

HTH

grandma Rosalie

S/V RosalieAnn, Leonardtown, MD
CSY 44 WO #156
http://home.mindspring.com/~gmbeasley/id1.html