Still At It.

Been four months and no posts, what gives?

Well, "life" is what happened.

Not to worry, I've still been plugging away on the boat when I can, so maybe I can say a little about what I've been up to. (and, no Matt, this isn't a 12 part mini-series)

The main reason I haven't posted any updates is that there's little progress going on at any one time. I mean, how many times can I really post "still working to scrape off bottom paint" before that gets old... believe me, it's getting old for me too. Since progress is slow on paint removal, I'm looking to hire someone to finish that part, then I'll do repairs of deep pitting/holes before applying a barrier coat and bottom paint.

Back in December, I signed off on the last paperwork I needed to retire from the military, only my actual retirement date was April. You'd think that now I'm retired, I'd have plenty of free time to work on the boat, right? Nope, wrong. So. Very. Wrong. I'd say now, I have less free time than I did before. Mainly because I have a 1yr old. Wife still works so I'm at the house most of the time watching the little one. She is getting to be quite the handful and SUCH A DADDY'S GIRL. I can't do much without her right beside me wanting to be picked up.

So, I still only get one day a week, Saturdays, to visit the boat. Most Saturday's anyway. Because of my retirement, I had to get a new drivers license and re-register my vehicles in Virginia since I can now no longer keep Tennessee. That ate up a couple weekends getting vehicles inspected & emissions testing. Then another weekend was my daughers first birthday. Basically, it ended up being about a month I couldn't get to the boat. Other weekends it was just slow progress in some part because of the weather (RAIN) but worked on other smaller things instead.

While I was going to wait until the boat launched, I decided to go ahead and get solar on the boat. Nothing setup just yet. Since I can get to the boat only one day a week, which is the only time I can charge the batteries, I figured solar woud be good to use to keep the batteries topped up the rest of the week. I'll post more on that later.

I also got an AIS transponder. I've been testing it the last few visits to the boat using one of the antennas on the truck. Works pretty good and hope to install that in the boat soon as well. I plan to post more on that later as well.

Not much else to it. Just wanted to show that I'm still at it, when I can. Soon, wife and I are going out of town for a couple weeks to Vancouver, BC, so that'll eat into the boat work too. Wife has plans on visiting other places too.

At this point, I'm not sure if I'll launch this year but I'll keep at it.

It'll launch one of these days.

MMSI Issued by FCC

Yesterday, I logged onto the FCC ULS website to see if there was an update to the application I submitted on the 10th. I was pleased to see that I now have a callsign and MMSI issued for Rhapsody. It only took 4 days. This is good news in case someone is coming up on a long voyage and needs it quickly.

Since I don't need AIS or DSC functions right now, I have plenty of time to research equipment and add it during the refit period or as funds come available.

How do you get an MMSI from the FCC?

This question is asked by many by those who want to get a DCS capable radio or to be able to transmit AIS position reporting. Some day, I'd like to add both of these capabilities and need to get an MMSI ahead of time.

From my limited research, you file for your MMSI from the FCC if your vessel will be traveling to international waters and foreign countries, even if it's to Canada or Bahamas and beyond. If your vessel is going to be in US waters only, you can apply through BoatUS.

I was looking at the process of how to do this and found a forum post where someone talked about it in a post from 2007. To get started, you need to get on the FCC Universal License System (ULS) website. If you don't already have an FCC Registration Number (FRN), you need to register for one. Being an amateur radio operator, I already had one so I just had to log in and submit a new application in order to get an MMSI.

There's a lot of pictures here, but follow this process with the information needed for yourself and your vessel and you should be good. I'm no expert here but this will give you an idea of what to expect during the process. I just did this process and it didn't take long to do at all. The longest part of this was making the screen shots to share with everyone else. Good luck!

NOTE: The cost for this application is $160.