A reader (thanks, Dan!) tipped me to this FCC approval issued last Thursday for Software Radio Technology’s Class B AIS transponder. Does that mean units using SRT’s circuit board can now be sold here, or do they need additional approval for their particular configurations? Will units from ACR, Shine Micro, Furuno, and Simrad be close behind (I don’t see applications in the FCC database, but I may not be looking in the right place). And what did the FCC decide about the MMSI numbers needed to activate a transponder; can boats in U.S. waters use the free ones easy to get—or already gotten for DSC radios—from BoatUS, SeaTow, and others, or will a user need to get an FCC license? Will a user be able to program a transponder with his MMSI number, or must a “qualified technician” do it? Inquiring minds want to know!
PS 4/12: So why does the “FCC approval” link now yield: “This application currently is not in final status”? Apparently the Government temporarily pulled SRT’s approval! My source says that this unusual move is only because the FCC accidently issued the certificate before publishing its own rules about Class B. Both rules and approval(s) should be out in a few weeks…for real.
This weekend a Panbo reader emailed me thusly: “How about an in-depth look at the electronics and friggin' AIS on that cruise ship that grounded then sank???” Well, I wish I could find the details of what electronic aids were available on that now sunken bridge, but I have little doubt about the accident’s cause. Incompetence trumps electronics every time! While I generally sympathize with a skipper who screws up—one result of my own numerous navigation errors—there are indications that this was an accident about to happen. One is that the Captain blamed strong currents for the grounding. As if set and drift shouldn’t have been toward the very top of his worry list, a critical factor to be on aware of, using electronics or older means. Then read down the same article to see how Sea Diamond’s operating company already had two serious accidents in the last year. Incompetence often flows from the top. At any rate, the news reports about this tragic sinking will surely get more detailed. For instance, I can’t yet find a map of just where it happened, so I looked up Santorini, Greece, in Google Earth. While there are numerous interesting POI entries about the island, no user has yet geo-located the wreck. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see that soon, GE being the global community map it’s become (more on that later).
My April PMY column about Charles Industries, and isolation transformers specifically, is now online. Also up are some new product write-ups meant, in part, to illustrate how companies that traditionally supplied engine and boat manufacturers are now making plays for helm space and consumer attention. One is instrument maker F.W. Murphy, whose HelmView is seen above as part of Volvo Penta’s EVC system but is also capable of chart plotting using its SD slot for Navionics cards (below). This puppy can handled three simultaneous CANbus connections, including NMEA 2000, as explained here, and at the Murphy site (and also as used aboard a Cruisers Yachts 447). HelmView’s retail price is not trivial, but it might make a super geek gauge. I also covered Charles’ new IMcharger series, which has optional helm display and/or N2K output, electronically controlled fuel tank selectors from Parker Fluid Control, and a nifty BilgeWatch8 monitoring system that I still have in the test lab, and will expand on here one day.
In Maine speak, that low pressure system which blasted through here last night was a “corker”, leaving at least 10” of snow which has a gluey consistency unfriendly to snow blowers and plows. Panbo world headquarters is still digging out! Now, of possibly greater interest, that screen above is from a new and quite nicely done weather program called UGRIB. It lets you download and display forecasts for any section of earth as generated by NOAA’s “global numerical weather prediction model.” And it’s all for free, thanks to the folks at GRIB.US. You only get wind, pressure, and precipitation—and, of course, you can find far richer weather data on the Web—but one beauty of GRIB files is their compactness if your data pipe is limited…like, say, a sat phone out in the ocean. GRIB numerical data can also be animated, as UGRIB does, and used by routing programs. Meanwhile, back here in Maine, a 40’ scallop boat sank Tuesday night as it tried to return home ahead of this storm. The crew is fine, apparently because they were well equipped with EPIRBs, survival suits, etc. The Luke & Jodi even had some sort of transponder such that the owner could track it from home, though that let to some confusion. At any rate, the crew did everything right according to the Coast Guard, except perhaps deciding to supply the liferaft with a case of beer and bottle of vodka “to keep them occupied while they waited to be rescued.” That led to problems (and more detail here).
Panbo friend John C. came back from more sailing aboard Solent Blue to discover that his overview photo of English Channel AIS traffic had stirred up quite a conversation. So he adds this:
The original photo was intended to show the number of AIS targets received from a 22 metre aerial whilst sailing across some busy shipping lanes. I don't routinely operate the equipment on 48 mile range other than to get a quick view of what is coming my way. Actually I do have some other photos taken in the same few minutes which depict a more normal operating practice at least for me.
Though CruzPro deserves more attention than it gets, as Panbo has noted before, I managed to let this neat new MaxVu110 multifunction display slip ever since METS. Too many electronics subjects, too little time! The Max110 is a monster, able to display up to five pages of data (from 16 stored configurations) in the three numeric fields and two bar graphs seen above. It has numerous possible inputs, knows just about every NMEA 0183 sentence written, and “contains built-in calibration curves for all popular engine temperature, oil pressure, fuel and tank level senders manufactured by VDO, Teleflex, Faria and Stuart-Warner”, including both American and European resistance ranges. And any field can be high/low alarmed. Finally, it comes with a Windows program that seems to make setting up all this instrumentation power easy. I can’t find the Max110 on CruzPro’s Web site, but it’s well presented in the online PDF catalog. I’ve got to think that this display could be useful to a geekish boater or imaginative installer, and hope we’ll get some reports about how it’s used.
This beauty of a system diagram, bigger here, came in from Al Corkins, aka BoatGuy (his email and Web site handle). The color coding indicates what exists on his boat (green), what’s in a closet ready for install (blue), and what he’s planning after that (pink). I asked Al where he got all those cool drawings of his components, and it turns out that he creates them in Microsoft Paint! He also has a wonderful Web site documenting his boats, and particularly his boat projects, which he does well (check out this C-80 install, for instance). I’ve only skipped around, but the factual content looks excellent and included is an appropriate sense of humor, even a boat project philosophy.
The successful boat project is truly an art form…The three primary tools you need for ensuring the project is done correctly is research, research, and research.
By the way I submitted a collage of this and other Panbo reader diagrams to go with my articles about picking systems. And I’m hoping that by the time they come out in print, I’ll be able to pretty up the reader system pages. More submissions are welcome, a new Panbo look is in the works, I swear.
