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| Under test at Jasons |
The first
symptom was a triple beep, sounding repeatedly some time after switching on the unit & not cancellable - very irritating! Further investigation revealed that the unit would play hide & seek with the satellite signal.
Thinking that this might be a cabling issue several days were spent remaking antenna connections (soldering is not our strongest skill) between the chart table & the gantry but to no avail.
Perhaps there was a hardware fault?
We knew of a Mr Ho at Jason Marine Services Singapore - he had condemned the sat phone antenna which was sent from Thailand last year! Mr Ho's office conveniently has a window facing west, towards the Indian Ocean Inmarsat satellite, that he opens so that the antenna can pick up the signal. He thoroughly checked out both the antenna & electronic unit.
The automatic gain control on the antennae had died, well it was 13 years old.
We knew of a Mr Ho at Jason Marine Services Singapore - he had condemned the sat phone antenna which was sent from Thailand last year! Mr Ho's office conveniently has a window facing west, towards the Indian Ocean Inmarsat satellite, that he opens so that the antenna can pick up the signal. He thoroughly checked out both the antenna & electronic unit.
The automatic gain control on the antennae had died, well it was 13 years old.
The shock - we baulked at the replacement cost over SGD 3000, not much less than a new, up to date unit from the US. After discussion a refurbished antenna was found for SGD 1700, plus a
service charge.
Over the next 24 hours we visited ATM's to get the cash together, collected and installed the equipment before leaving Singapore. It works!
Jason's service was excellent.
*B.O.A.T = "Bring Out Another Thousand"
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