ST60 Raymarine Wind & Close Hauled - experience?

[pjr]

Hi all:
For your information ...
As usual, we took our mast off last fall and hauled the boat for the winter. It gets cold here, the water freezes and the winds on the east shore of Lake Huron can be strong in the winter. Stepping the mast in the spring was a pain as we had to thread the bundle of wires (VHF, ST60, mast lights) down the support tube and into the space under the head sink while the mast base was held steady above the deck.. And then make the connections.
So I decided to put the connections at deck level and use plug/sockets to make it easier. I replaced the RG58/U vhf cable with RG8/U all the way to the radio - bad idea as the 8/U cable is thicker and stiffer, but doable. I used a flat 4-wire trailer wire cable for the lights and RJ11 8-wire phone plugs with a cat5 network cable for the wind instrument's 5 wires.
At the mast step, I shortened the RG58/U cable and soldered on the old connector; spliced, soldered, shrink-wrapped the mast lights to a six inch length of the trailer cable and its socket, used a punch down tool to connect the RJ11 socket to the ST60 cable.
The new 'cable' through the mast support tube consisted of the RG8/U cable with the old connector soldered onto it and the mating connection; the flat 4-wire cable with the plug at deck level and the Cat5 network cable.
Under the head sink (I have to take the door off to get in there ...) the flat wire goes to the existing terminal block for the mast lights and the Cat5 cable plugs into a matching RJ11 socket with the ST60 wires punched into it.
Connecting went much faster when the mast was stepped.
But the ST60 display showed three dases - no wind speed. Had to be my new connections?!
A week or so later, we lifted the mast up, redid the connections there. No change.
Later that day, while browsing the manual, I found it requested that I know the software revsion level when I talked to Raymarine. So I turned it on, held down the appropriate buttons for 4 seconds, recorded the number, exited the menu. And I had wind speed. And direction!
Discussing it with an experienced local repair guy, he asked one question: "Raymarine?" I nodded. He said pressing those buttons may also have done a master reset of the instrument.
When in doubt, read the fine manual!

Peter Richards
Catalina 350 # 402, Imagine