Argh! I haven’t gotten too exercised about Senator Rick Santorum’s bill to limit NOAA’s distribution of weather forecasts because I thought it simply too ridiculous to pass, but yesterday I came across this steaming pile of pure double speak. “Free the Weather” is a disinformation campaign run by CWSA—a trade association for the commercial weather industry—meant to support Santorum’s bill. The big lie is that NOAA’s National Weather Service is currently not required to dispense weather to the public, and has sometimes been tardy. That’s like arguing that your local fire department is not legally obliged to fight fires. So what?…that’s what they do. In fact NOAA does an amazing job of distributing data and forecasts both to the public and all the commercial interests that want to add value to it. And never mind that Santorum’s bill restricts distribution to "a set of data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers." Check out FreeTheWeather.org and see if it makes any sense to you. (For instance, they post an interesting series from the Miami Herald about frustrations at the Hurricane Center, but does they support the Santorum bill at all?) You might get mad, and you might want to contact your Senators and ask them to free S. 786 from its misery.
PS One of the neat things NOAA does, I think, is to give the public access to the hurricane forecaster’s discussion notes. It’s geeky stuff, but today you can learn that some of the computer models of wicked Wilma have her coming closer to New England than the current 5 prediction track shows. Damn!
It turns out that Nobeltec has decided to market the Si-Tex (Nasa) single frequency black box “AIS100” receiver instead of the Comar SLR-100 as I had first presumed. I dare say that this move, along with adding AIS tracking to the VNS program, is meant to make AIS available at modest cost. Nobeltec is selling the AIS100 for $330 (plus you’ll need a VHF antenna). I very much like the idea of encouraging recreational boaters to see what AIS tracking can do for them, but am still a little leery about single frequency receivers and the quality of the Nasa box in particular. Many electronics manufacturers are testing these receivers and some report that the Nasa box is none too sensitive, dropping further away targets when compared to say a $1,000 SeaLinks RadarPlus (using the same antenna). Then again, other testers say that all the receivers are fairly comparable, and one notes that the placement and quality of the antenna is an important factor. I’m wondering how effective single frequency listening will be when Class B transponders hit the market. I’ll write soon about the what and when of Class B, but do know that under that standard boats will transmit dynamic data—MMSI, position, COG, SOG, etc.—every 30 seconds at best (Class A transponders put the data out every 2–10 seconds based on speed and rate of turn).
Another thing about the Si-Tex/Nasa/Nobeltec receiver is that it sticks to one frequency unless you tell it differently. I’m not sure how important this is but have not seen a way to actually manage the box except in the standard edition of Yacht AIS, seen above, which also has a control for Automatic Gain Constant and a signal meter. The impression I’m getting is that any AIS, even half listening to half a transponder, is a good thing, but the receiver market is going to have several tiers, and to some degree you’re going to get what you pay for.
Oy, I’m a tired puppy after 5 days of NMEA conference and yet more plane rides. Yesterday’s featured a puking infant during a bumpy landing in Boston followed by a final leg into Rockland on a little plane purposely run with some empty seats (they also rearranged us “for balance”, causing a wee bit more nervousness). But I am fully loaded with interesting info about NMEA 2000, AIS, new products and more, and I should be able to post more frequently, at least this week.
For starters, check out the NMEA 2000 “consistent” wiring system above introduced by Lowrance (more detail in a pop-up at Lowrance.com). It looks a lot like the standard NMEA 2000 cabling and connectors I’ve been testing but in fact it’s not certified and its plugs are purportedly not compatible! This is certainly not what the standard was supposed to be about—plug and play interoperability between different brands of gear—and I’m told it caused quite a hubbub in the NMEA 2000 committee meetings. (And I hope those folks who think NMEA is a “club” dedicated to keeping small developers out will note how fractious it really is). In fact there have been issues with the 2000 cable standard all along. Many think it’s too expensive and/or too bulky. That’s why Simrad, Raymarine, and Lowrance each use their own proprietary 2000 cable to interconnect their own 2000 equipment (which is legal under the standard). That’s why Simrad and Raymarine had to supply patch cables to tee into my test system (though I could have made them fairly easily).
So it would seem even messier if Lowrance sells an alternate, uncertified backbone cable/tee system—even if it leads to some of the first 2000 production boats, as announced by Ranger last week—but I’m told that there is going to be a happy ending to this story. Two reliable sources tell me that there will be a major breakthrough in the cable situation announced within a month. I’m guessing they mean that Lowrance will end up truly compliant and that the industry will agree on a second, less costly (though possibly more limited) cable and connector standard.
I felt like a spy in an old WWII movie, rigging a VHF antenna and GPS on the patio outside my hotel room late at night, then hunching over my laptop hoping for certain transmissions…but, by golly, it worked. The Si-Tex/Nasa receiver heard an AIS equipped 37m vessel called Ixplorer apparently anchored or docked 3.7 miles away in La Ciotat. There was only that one target (the Radio Shack antenna was missing a set screw, which probably affected range), plus I didn’t have a detailed electronic chart of the area, but it worked. That’s the target info showing above in SeaClearII, the freeware that comes with the receiver. SeaClear was pretty easy to set up with both USB GPS and AIS serial input. I also tried the gear with Coastal Explorer 1.1, again easy to set up, but also capable of calculating CPA/TCPA (and displaying more target info, and in a couple of different ways). I’ll try the rig some more when I’m in Naples tomorrow and later in Ft. Lauderdale, assuming my luggage gets there.
PS. Totally different subject, but was somewhat saddened to learn on Zephyr that Pride of Baltimore II (a remarkable boat I’ve had the pleasure of twice passaging aboard) lost her entire rig off France last month. The good news, and hard to imagine how, is that no one was hurt. More good news, for those interested, is that two crew members are blogging the mishap and repairs.
Whew…back in Maine for a couple of days before NMEA conference. France is sort of a daze, but the pictures suggest I wasn’t just dreaming. The St. Tropez regatta of classic and modern sail boats (official site here) was phenomenal to behold. That’s Mari-Cha headed for “first to finish”. Note the size of the mast instruments, almost readable from where I was standing (on a tour boat handled by a very skillful and brave skipper) with my midsize telephoto (bigger image here). Below is one of the Wally fleet, crew relaxing after the race (bigger here ). I’m not sure what they all do as those sleek button pods at the helm run all sorts of hydraulic sail handling gear. If you want to see some of the classics—why not?—check out Philip Plisson’s images here.
Truth is I’m a little out of sorts, what with a stressful flight across the Atlantic, a missed flight in Paris, and a lost suitcase still not shown up 30 hrs later (there’s one of them French strikes going on). But, despite the fact I’m wearing the same clothes I left Maine in (and learning how to crank up Euro towel warmers to dry hand washed underwear), I had a great day touring megayacht yards in Toulon, La Ciotat, and Marseilles. These guys are intent on turning much of the withering shipbuilding assets of the region—man skills, cranes, drydocks, etc.—toward maintaining and refitting the world’s growing population of really big yachts. I saw evidence that the strategy is already working, and the future looks rosy indeed. It strikes me as smart that they’re not trying to compete with Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands at building these beasts, but instead are putting together the biggest yacht repair yards the planet has ever seen. This thought was confirmed by an American superyacht captain I ran into who said that South Florida has really blown its chance to keep being a significant megayacht center into the future—no new space. Oh well.
Above is the exception to the rule (bigger here ), a brand new mega speedboat from French builder Couach. This is only about 80’ but quite impressive with its gray gelcoat deck and surface piercing drives. The winner at the helm is Furuno with twin monitors, black box radar, black box NavNet, and a few RD30 data displays all onboard. There’s also a Simrad AP50 autopilot, and the only lit screens are a systems monitoring device I couldn’t figure out the maker of and a multi camera display. That’s Toulon in the background. I’m headed to Voiles des St. Tropez tomorrow and will post if possible.
I’m in a pre-travel dither today (evening flight to France), but I have a couple of thoughts about the recent sale of Simrad’s marine electronics assets to the “Nordic private equity fund Altor”. On the surface at least, it looks something like Raymarine’s split from giant Raytheon. I remember at the time how skeptics fretted that the new independent company would suffer for lack of the mother corp.’s R&D depth and deep pockets, but it certainly seems that Raymarine has been developing interesting and successful products ever since (and its financial backers enjoyed an IPO). Let’s hope Simrad gets a similar shot of energy. I also want to note one of Simrad’s significant assets. My wife and I got to tour two of its factories in Norway a few years ago and were impressed with what we saw and felt. The lady above is assembling autopilots in the old Robertson operation in the fishing port of Egersund (drying fish and socks below, how salty is that!). R&D, production, marketing all shared the same waterfront facilities, and many folks had been there for decades. There was a solid, peaceful feel to the whole operation. Afterwards, Andrea, who cares little about this stuff, said that if electronics were important to her, she’d like to have these people building them.
Well, I’m beginning to understand why the Nasa AIS receiver is so much less expensive than most others on the market (besides the single frequency business). For one thing, the wire connections to the “not waterproof” box are funky compared to most marine electronics. Above you can see how an install might look if you use its ability to blend a GPS into its data stream. Note how the red power wire uses a pin connector with no lock (if your boat is rattlely, you might want to duct tape it). The illustration, by the way, is from an installation pdf that Digiboat put together, which is way better than what came with the unit.
Then there’s the fact that once you’ve wired the receiver to antenna, PC, and power, you have no way to know if it works. No LEDs, no NMEA strings unless it’s actually receiving targets. Without a real manual, I had no way of knowing what was going on so I e-mailed customer support at Digiboat, who seem to know this hardware, and got a prompt response that confirmed my fears, “the NASA AIS Receiver gives NO INDICATION whether it's working, or not - quite frustrating really. Unless, of course, you're surrounded by transmitting targets.”
In fact, Simon Blundell from Digiboat has figured out a way to solder 4 useful status LEDs into the Nasa receiver, and has posted a thorough Web page about the project (check it out…this is DIY pioneering!). He also pointed out that I could check the install by doing the GPS bypass above. Nah…I will be in hotel right on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille, France, later this week, so hope to test with real targets. Blundell suggests that once I see how well the Nasa box works for the money, the negatives will fade. We’ll see.
