Jack Erbes wrote in
:

Larry wrote:
GeoffSchultz wrote in
ups.com:

I have a RayMarine SeaTalk based RayStar 120 GPS antenna which is a
piece of crap.

Shhh....take the 4 screws out of the Raymarine 2KW radome, pull off
the top and let me know how corroded all those pot metal parts
look....another PoS.

Larry

That is a damn lie! And one that I am tired of hearing.

Link to this group some photographs of properly installed Raymarine
scanners found in the condition you describe and I'll kiss your ass
publicly in the venue of your choice. And pay my own way there.

I reserve the right to verify the details of the installation and
length of service. That is because you have not established any
credentials for accuracy or truthfulness on this topic.

The ones that you cleverly "improved" by plugging vents and drains and
otherwise deviating from the mounting instructions do not qualify for
this offer.

It is possible to get a radar into the condition you describe. It is
not a matter of routine on properly installed Raymarine radars. There
are better radars on the market but the Raymarine is not a bad radar.

Think it over Larry, you are tarnishing yourself in the eyes of any
knowledgeable persons.

Jack


Geez, Jack. The whole inside of this PoS is made of pot metal! It rains
in there from the OPEN DOME DRAIN rubber tit in the bottom. It's not
pressurized or sealed in any way. We've been through several 2KW domes.
It's a pain in the ass hauling it up and down everytime it craps out.
The chinzy-assed compression contacts the wires slide under are totally
exposing the INSIDE of the pot metal box, which turns to a white powder
in a year, dropping down on the exposed horizontally-mounted circuit
board. The maggie power drops after the rain inside has rusted the
maggie's laminated core causing eddy currents in the core. As the
magnetism drops in the cavities, power out drops, of course.

Where do you live in Utah? We live in Charleston, SC, on the OCEAN where
sea breezes waft in and rust any exposed pot metal parts all to hell!

The dome is only held together by 4 little screws, not a proper
compression weather seal. The O-ring doesn't make good contact with the
cheap plastic dome, in spite of the little plastic tits that provide a
cursory alignment until you get the screws tight. The whole top to
bottom "seal" is a joke. It matters not with that rubber tit drain in
the bottom of it breathing that wet sea air in and out every 24 hours
causing it to condense on the INSIDE of the dome every night. Even the
cheap printed circuit board antenna gets corroded over time. It stays
wet until the sun boils it off in the morning.

Someone at Raymarine needs to buy an Icom AT-130 antenna tuner and look
closely at its cheap plastic SEALED UP case. There's on screwed down to
the top of Lionheart's aft cabin roof right next to the mizzen deck step.
I did take the ****ty little board connector off it and solder the
control cable wires properly to the PC board INSIDE the sealed case of
the tuner, eliminating the control cable rot from the seawater washing
over the whole thing. Those cheap plastic stuffing tubes do a great job
of keeping the water out of the tuner, even with all the direct splashing
the radar dome isn't subjected to up 40' on the forward side of the
mizzen. The inside of the 5-year-old AT-130 tuner looks like the day I
installed it....clean, uncorroded, with shiny surfaces and unscathed by
going to sea OUTSIDE in the weather....as it should be.

Too bad that radar dome isn't properly SEALED, too, and made out of
something besides pot metal zinc that corrodes like the one on the shaft
underwater.

A young(er) friend of mine, a fellow ham, took the last one down and put
up the 3rd replacement. He's a service engineer with Scientific Research
Corp, a Navy submarine electronics contractor and former nuclear sub
electronics type. I won't repeat what he did when he took the top off
the Raymarine PoS to unwire the crappy board clips so he could dismount
it. There's ladies reading this newsgroup and it wouldn't be right...(c;

You can posture and scream all you want. It's a piece of pot metal crap!



Larry
--
While in Mexico, I didn't have to press 1 for Spanish.

It just isn't fair.