Well, I’ve updated the Ideal Marine Electronics pages with new entries, even pictures and diagrams. One professional installer has weighed in so far, and I thought it interesting that at the end of his high-end-gear-that-doesn’t-break list—mostly brands of IBM stature—is relative newbie Krill Systems. Which reminded me of this snapshot taken at the Ft. Lauderdale Show. Krill was demonstrating live how easily their software can monitor a boat via IP and Krill’s secure server. In fact, the volunteer yacht was in a marina somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and not a lot was going on, but apparently if you were a little bored in a show booth, you could keep track of when someone flushed a head, causing a noticeable rise in the black water tank (bigger image here)!
C.A.P. Major Tim Strickland wrote in: “In my free time, I'm doing an experiment to track Civil Air Patrol Search & Rescue aircraft using the AIS SAR Aircraft Position Report (AIS Message 9) in maritime environments. There's interest in other SAR air assets doing the same, and curiosity on whether vessels can (they should) see these aircraft when they're transmitting. Have you seen much regarding the use of AIS Message 9? I've gotten one aviation AIS transponder company to loan a unit to test/demonstrate this and perhaps pursue migration to AIS Message 25 (BFT). I'm looking for a low-cost receive, display & chart (with land, not just marine maps).” I know nothing about this SAR Aircraft message, but am hoping someone can educate us in the comments section (or you can email Tim directly). Meanwhile, if you’re thinking about building AIS transponders, CML Microcircuits wants you to check out their dedicated CMX processors. Their site is mostly above my head, but I think it’s another sign that AIS may get smaller and less expensive at a rapid rate. By the way, PMY has started to post my columns again, including my March one on Class B.
PS 3/13 Good question from Tim Flanagan, now at Navagear.com, who’s writing an article on the potential value of “Synthetic AIS”: “Is anybody broadcasting aids-to-navigation, hazards-to-navigation, or vessel-in-distress info from equipment NOT installed upon the affected vessel or object? By the way, have you encountered any nomenclature to describe this, besides Synthetic AIS and Virtual AIS?”
Today is not exactly like 12/31/1999, but there definitely are some questions about what’s going to automatically understand the Daylight Saving Change tomorrow, and what isn’t. For instance, will your Windows PC? Apparently that depends on update status, and ditto for Macs. Now, I already discussed the update planned for Nobeltec’s Tides & Currents, but it turns out that the 9.1.2213 service pack for VNS and Admiral 9 just finally released today, which seems a bit tardy! (I also understand that Nobeltec is not yet supporting Vista, but I’m not sure any other ECS is.) I got wondering about other tide prediction programs. It turns out that at least Coastal Explorer get its time from the computer it’s on. Why didn’t T&C take this easy approach? Well, if a program doesn’t know about DST, it can’t use it when predicting tides in the future. That’s why there’s no sign of the DST change tomorrow in CE’s tide table above, and bigger here, as calculated today. (I also notice that CE is figuring Rockland tides off of Bar Harbor, whereas T&C uses NOAA’s harmonics for Rockland, not wicked important but more accurate). As for all the chart plotters that can predict tides, I think they all base their time on GPS input plus or minus a local, user entered, offset. For instance, if you’re in Eastern Standard Time, five hours later than Universal Time (aka GMT), tomorrow you “spring ahead” to EDT by changing a Raymarine’s offset to -4.0.
I think I had a pretty good idea yesterday, encouraging you all to submit your visions of ideal gear set-ups, but I made it much too complicated. Now you’ll see below that I’ve simplified the categories into classic “good, better, best” terms, and also started (crude) Web pages for system descriptions that come via email. These could become valuable resources not only for my writing projects, but for anyone trying to think through a nav/comms system of their own. Isn’t it interesting, for instance, that the first two submissions in the “better” category represent two quite different approaches and brand choices (both reasonable, I think)? Richard’s came with these photos of his Mac Mini install, and his “Thanks to GPSnavX for giving me the privilege to not have to run Windows for navigation!”, which makes the second time this week that he’s gotten raves here.
I’ve already described the premise below, and here are some vague notions of the three categories, plus links to some responses. Please share your ideal gear ideas via comments or email. Thanks.
Good: About a 30’ cruising sail or powerboat doing short hops along coast with the occasional overnight trips; budget/value is important. Submissions so far (3/19/07).
Better: Typically a 40’ +/- cruising powerboat capable of trips, say, up into Canada or out to the Bahamas, including occasional overnight runs; the budget is good but not over the top. Sailboats in this category would certainly include racer/cruisers used for extended coastal cruising combined with ocean racing events like the Marblehead-Halifax and Bermuda races. Submissions so far plus Dan’s sailboat (3/24/07).
Best: 50’ and better bluewater cruisers, sailboat ready for a circumnavigation including high latitude sailing, powerboat capable of ocean crossings and remote explorations; very healthy budget. Submissions so far (3/24/07), plus check out Panbo entries on Bluewater and Spirit of Zopilote.
Alrighty, then, time to quit my whining and really put Panbo to work. And I mean YOU! I have a Sail feature assignment to “design ideal navigation and communications gear set-ups” for three different size but fairly typical saltwater cruising boats, and I’m doing something similar in PMY). Obviously it’s a terrifying opportunity to piss off all the manufacturers who don’t make the lists. And it’s also impossible. There’s so much good gear out there, and so many personal variables to what’s “ideal”—simplicity vs. whiz bang, reliability vs. new new, embedded vs. computer-based, single brand vs. many, good value vs. gimme-the-best…etc. etc. But let’s give it shot; it’ll be educational. Whether you’re a pro installer, boat owner, or a dreamer, tell us what your ideal set-up would be for. The only categories we’ll go for will be “good, better, best”, sail or power, as detailed in the entry above. Please submit your ideas in the comments section, or by email for addition to the Web pages I’ll create for each category (and please tell me if I can use your name here and in magazines). Equipment chosen should be at least real enough that you can order it. Of course we’d like to hear about the thinking behind your decisions, and detailed gear lists, photos, helm mockups, and system diagrams are all very welcome. In return you’ll get the chance to share your ideas, a possible magazine credit, and my gratitude.
Yesterday loaner units of two new Cobra VHF’s—the MR F80 B and MR HH425LI VP (who makes up such names?)—showed up on my doorstep. I plan thorough tests, but first some initial reaction to the handheld, which I wrote about when a similar model was introduced in Europe. If you read that entry, you’ll see that I liked the “Rewind, Say Again” memory feature in part because I pictured using it when I missed an important bit of a long NOAA weather forecast loop. Well, guess what? The memory feature does not work when you’re on the weather frequencies! Now, in many other ways the feature is quite well done, like that count down timer shown on the screen (my replay has 13 of 20 seconds left to play), the way you can record your own transmission (though you won’t know how without the manual), and the “REW” on screen showing if you have the recorder on or off. And, by the way, 20 seconds turns out to be fairly long in terms of VHF transmissions. (And, yes, there is something a bit unbalanced about the screen lighting, more on that later.) I want to whine some more about my wrong presumption re: replaying weather forecasts. I know that at least one knowledgeable person at Cobra read that entry, but did not think to explain this particular limitation to the feature (or missed it). That’s a shame, because such corrections are a real Panbo feature. In fact, to some extent I use these entries as raw writer’s notes, and that usually works well because I get the feedback of electronics enthusiasts and the trade, I can correct mistakes nearly instantly, and all that means that what I eventually write for print publication is more accurate. In fact, I just mentioned that same weather replay bit in a piece on this radio for Sail. It happens that it’s still fixable, but in a week or so it would be headed to ink where it might have put a wrong idea into the heads of possible Cobra customers for many months to come. Plus, I know that others in the marine press use Panbo as an electronics research tool. So, head’s up, manufacturers, please, please correct mistakes made here before they go further!
There were several reasons for that grin on John Gass, Electronics Manager at Wayfarer Marine, the most obvious being that he was beating a particularly nasty February Maine day by testing a possible upgrade system in his shop. Second would be how unusual the system was, closeup here, a Mac Mini running MacENC (review link here) and talking to both a Furuno RD-30 and a NavNet vx2, black box model. John was stressing the whole kit by inputing GPS either from the laptop running Nema Talker or a Garmin 192, plus he had an AIS simulator running on a PC in the next room and connected to the Mini via Bluetooth, and a radar simulator that Furuno apparently supplies to dealers. There was also a Keyspan serial-to-USB converter plus lots of wires and alligator clips involved, which made me feel better about some of my test setups, and may account for the embarrassed portion of that smile. Regardless, John got all the data—routes and waypoints included—running around quite well except for one little MacENC-waypoint-to-NavNet glitch. Despite good support from both companies, he didn’t get that one solved before the potential owner of this system—who already has a very nice one, but wants MARPA and AIS—decided to put the R&D on hold. At any rate good geek fun was had, and I also became acquainted with Firma Mats Kagstron’s AIS Simulator (source of many other NMEA software products) and Effective Solutions’ combined AIS and NMEA Simulation, both of which I’d like to investigate further. Thanks, John!
I kid you not when I say I've had my eye on this product for many months. Now some real info has come to Kelvin Hughes' SharpEye Web site, though you have to register to get at it, and there still aren't any actual radar screenshots up yet. No matter, this looks like a major development. SharpEye is a solid state radar transceiver that purportedly uses a tiny fraction of the power demanded by an equivalent scanner, yet is radically better at finding small targets in clutter. It also "extracts the relative motion of targets by measuring the phase of received radar echoes relative to the phase of the transmission." The first shipping product, in June, will only work with large (4 meter!) existing Kelvin Hughes S band antennas, but they're working on X band, and rumor has it that this technology will eventually come to recreational boats. I won't try to explain how "monostatic pulse radar" works, because I don't know, but you can detect the enthusiasm yourself in places like this Navigation News PDF.
If you read Power & Motoryacht, you may have noticed a contest we’re running on the last inside page. Each month there’s a beautiful full page photo of a distinctive coastal landmark from the vast archives of marinas.com. Inset is a Raymarine E-Series with screen like the above, only smaller. The challenge is to use the data on the screen to figure out where the landmark is. Well, we’re getting more correct answers than expected and I’m especially curious why because I’m making the screens (harder and harder). So help me out; can you figure out where this lovely place is? Did you do it using the screen, or by searching through marinas.com (for a long time), or some other way we never anticipated? Please email me your answers. By the way, the contest has some nice electronics prizes, but, sorry, the entries for this February edition are closed. If you’re good at this, you could always buy the March issue (try a big bookstore, PMY is not into newstand), or a subscription.
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