May 2006 Archives

Pocket Navigator SP, with a fab weather page

Yes, indeedy, that’s nearly real time Nexrad weather radar showing the rain around Boston this morning, and it was loaded automatically when I rotated to this page in the new Smart Phone edition of Pocket Navigator. This is not a subscription service; the software is simply using the phone’s web browsing ability to grab a small file from NOAA, and whereas the base map is resident a download covering New England only requires 2–10 k-bytes, depending on the amount of rain. On this particular phone and the Cingular service I’m trying, it takes a few seconds via GPRS and costs about a dime a download. Note that this is not animated radar—which was particularly noticeable today as the rain was moving east to west (very unusual here)—but at a dime a look, it’s easy to monitor the trends. The developer, Richard Stephens, also had set the phone up with several links to NOAA text weather predictions, buoy reports, and the like, which are similarly low bandwidth and work nicely.

This phone is also a pretty darn good micro chart plotter when used with a Bluetooth GPS, as illustrated in this larger photo. It even has a 1 gig mini SD card inside, so chart storage is not an issue! Of course the screen is even smaller than the PDA I’ve normally used this program on, and the touch screen is much missed (that’s why the menu choices above are numbered). But, then again, if you go everywhere with a smart phone in your pocket, how nice to be able to view charts, topo maps, weather radar, etc. Note that this version of Pocket Navigator is part of Memory Map Navigator 5.0.7, and is not yet included with the more stripped down version of Pocket Navigator that Maptech markets. 

Update 5/4: Weather radar animation is planned for the next version of Pocket Navigator (PN) Smart Phone, and the Smart Phone implementation will be added to the Maptech version of PN soon. So what, then, does the  the less expensive Maptech PN lack? The major Memory-Map advantages: a version of the PC program that is a full GPS navigation program, not just a chart and route manager;  the ability to read lots of chart and map types besides Maptech’s; and, finally, more frequent and timely updates of PC, PDA, and SP programs.

Simrad engine display, better than dials?

I wear a watch with hands, but I’m not crazy about traditional engine gauges, especially when there are rows and rows of them, and most especially when they’re digitally rendered. Yes, a screen like this SmartCraft/Northstar combo looks ‘wow’, but isn’t Simrad’s version above, bigger here, much more screen efficient and informative? By my count, the bar gauges on this half display represent nine data points, or eighteen dials with dual engines. I haven’t seen this monitoring in actual use, but I’d hope that there could be ticks for ‘normal’ values, and maybe changing or flashing colors for critical values. Electronic engines combined with the smarts and displays of navigation electronics offer such wonderful possibilities (which, of course, is why the break up of Brunswick New Technologies seems especially mysterious).

Note that Simrad can display data from engines that use the NMEA 2000 protocol, or can speak it through an electronic bridge. Note too that this screen also shows Simrad’s unique radar overlay “sandwich”. See how the yellow targetry lays over the charted land but then the nav aids lay over everything (like the lighthouse at about 2 o’clock and 2 range rings from the boat). This is a little nuance that everyone else should copy!