I worked on S/V Reconteur, a big Hunter 460, moving his HF tuner,
rewiring the antenna system, installing a new 23' HF whip were we could
between the boat davit/solar farm and the bimini top aft edge. Rig is an
Icom IC-M700PRO. The new antenna works first class all up and down the
bands.

This wasn't the story.....

The story is while I was sitting helpless in the cockpit at Charleston
Harbor Marina and Resort....THE GNATS ATE ME ALIVE IN DECEMBER!

There's been a major hatching! Man, the little buggers have covered my
bare arms in tiny bumps and were quite painful biters. The marina is
having a veritable GNAT STORM!.....IN DECEMBER!.....

It was 79F this afternoon under the hot South Carolina Sun. My tan
hasn't even faded this winter...(c;

If you don't hear from the South again, you'll know these aliens have
taken over and eaten us! Send troops!

Great day had by all, even though it was work. Stupid marina is trying
to cover the whole place with ONE wifi router....which isn't gonna
happen.

I don't have the computer program to unlock the 700PRO so it will
transmit on the ham bands, so we got on the Caribbean 4 Mhz freqs after
dark and made a few contacts to test it. The big whip worked great with
the AT-130 tuner and copper 3" wide grounding strap we hooked to the
installed grounding system. I still think the metal cable boom lift is
going to eat some signal and should be changed out to nylon. It's the
only parallel metal object to the monster whip on the stern.

Larry
--
Merry Christmas!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_NhFS4xEE