I've enjoyed the Ship Finder AIS viewing app as it's gained features and available feeds, and particularly like how the latest 1.7 version draws targets with their reported heading (and course predictor lines if they're underway). How nice then that developer PinkGrapefruit Designs is letting Panbo give redemption codes for free copies to the first fifty iPhone-owning readers who email iphone at panbo.com. {12:30 pm EST: Sorry, the codes are 'sold' out.}
The screen shot above shows MaxSea TimeZero Explorer running on Gizmo this morning, much like I showed last week. In this case you can see how I'm cranking up the radar gain, a neat right click and mouse wheel maneuver, because I'm trying to see the ship coming down the Bay. Which was really asking too much of the superb DRS2D radome because there were so many large obstructions between Gizmo's slip and the Kristen Knutsen. What's really different about this screen is that the FA50 AIS data is finally getting to MaxSea TZ, which should have just happened given that the transponder, like the radar, is plugged into the same Ethernet switch as the MFD and the PC...
Garmin just announced several new products which will be shown when the doors open at METS tomorrow morning. The 6000 and 7000 series are very much like the successful 4- and 5000 series except that apparently they've got enough processor speed to warrant a new expression for how fast and smoothly they pan and zoom charts -- Garmin G Motion. They've also got backlighting that dims down more than the originals, and backlit keypads. And the big mama 15" touch screen 7012 and 7015, which will retail for something like $7,000, have a feature that's a first for MFDs, I think -- VGA input, so a user can use them as a monitor for a down below PC. Interesting! They also have four regular video inputs, and I'm told that all the new machines can display video input full screen (which was a problem). Though it's not in the press release, I also understand the 6- and 7000 series will have limited distribution, which means they're mainly meant for installer/dealers, a crowd Garmin has slowly been winning over. Garmin's new Class B AIS is no slouch either...
I am a wee bit jealous. That's my brother-in-law Richard Itkin driving his Grand Banks 42 Brilliant down Chesapeake Bay this morning, having left New York Harbor yesterday morning (and Barrington, RI, on Tuesday). As a guy who drove submarines and sub tenders for the U.S. Navy, Rich has a well developed appreciation for collision avoidance, and he's been tickled with the ACR Nauticast B AIS transponder he installed a few weeks ago. But before I pass on his reports, please click on the screen above and note something I just realized regarding MarineTraffic.com.
The iPhone AIS app Ship Finder got updated a few weeks back, and darned if it didn't add a large Eastern Seaboard feed that even includes the Penobscot Bay listening stations set up by the local pilots. That feed hasn't been public for some time, and I'm tickled to have it in my pocket, even if the data is delayed an hour. Ship Finder is improved in several other ways, too, and has become one of my favorites. Red Sky, incidentally, is a handsome 30m Swan that's been hanging around Camden this summer. Now I know she's at Lyman Morse in Thomaston, which is near enough to the Rockland listening tower that her 2 watt Class B transponder gets picked up. The same tower doesn't see even 12 watt Class A's in Camden, largely because of the hills, but if I get down the Bay next week (hoping), maybe I can engage in some AIS-style navel gazing? And, now, for more serious matters...
In 2005, when Software Radio Technology talked about a Class B AIS transponder retailing for $500, I expressed some skepticism. But "good work takes time" (as I often say about my home-built home), Class B has almost reached that price point in 2009 (largely thanks to SRT), and -- holy cow, Batman -- wait til you hear what they've got in the pipeline. For starters, how about a small, high performance Class A transponder that will cost "well below $2,000" and will be available to client companies (SRT sells nothing direct) "at the end of 2009"? And apparently that's as both an OEM product virtually ready to ship or as a two-board module ready to get additional features (like NMEA 2000 output) and/or be integrated into ECDIS, plotters, VHF radios, etc...
I've been testing a SevenStar SeaTraceR Class B AIS transponder for couple of weeks now, mostly on Gizmo but also in the lab. I could not detect any significant performance differences between it and other Class Bs, even when quickly swapping antenna connections and counting targets. But it does have a nice over/under tilt mount that lends itself to numerous install positions, and it also has wires for a remote silent switch, like the ACR Nauticast B (though, also like the ACR, it has no built-in switch). I'm pretty much convinced that the first generation Class B transponders all perform similarly (and pretty well), but what will we see when the next generation comes along?...
This was nice. It was Friday late morning -- after the fog burned off but before the torrential rains arrived (summer of '09 is making history!) -- and we were idling along in company with the school schooner Tabor Boy. All of which was being colorfully portrayed on the Garmin 5212's Mariner 3D screen; zoom in and you'll see the Tabor Boy's Class A AIS signal represented as a 3D icon with heading and track lines. You'll also see Gizmo's own Class B AIS represented as an unnamed dangerous target directly under our own boat icon, a little glitch we've already discussed...
Garmin announced a slew of new products yesterday, the most innovative of which is probably the black box VHF 300 AIS. I think that this is not only the first combination VHF radio and AIS receiver (aside from the mod Icom UK apparently came up with), but also the first AIS receiver with NMEA 2000 output. While there are a couple of issues with N2K AIS target messages right now, I'm confidant they'll be fixed soon, and this will become the way to go. For instance, a Garmin plotter should
easily be able to "direct dial" AIS targets, buddies included, using
N2K. But that's not all to like about this radio...
Should I rename the blog iPanbo? I know I've been focused on these marine apps a lot, but, as noted just last week, the developement velocity is awesome. I first heard about Ship Finder this morning from the good gCaptain, who is working on a similar app (with more of a professional slant, natch), and judging from Ship Finder's web page, I didn't even think it was Apple approved yet. But I learned otherwise when the enthusiastic developer showed up here, had copies running on iPhone and Touch in minutes, and, wow, it's good. This, mind you, is not AIS as presented on iNavX, which functions like a little plotter; this is AIS web style, collected from multiple shore receivers, plotted on Google maps, and often annotated with much more info than what is actually sent over the AIS system. I hadn't realized how usefully these "live" AIS feeds could work with an iPhone's display power, portability and always-on internet connection...
