How about a 5" square "multi-band bisynchronous simultaneous reception and transmission " antenna that doesn't need to be mast-mounted and can handle frequencies from AM and shortwave through FM and VHF and up into cellular, GPS, sat phones, and WiFi...three radios at once?!? That's actually just the beginning of what AMT Revolution claims possible of its "Advanced Membrane Transducers."
Even if it was pretty predictable (I got it half right), Garmin will indeed add (“2nd Quarter, 2009”) fixed VHF radios to its ever-expanding marine line. Here’s the press release, and here’s a bigger image of the VHF 200 model above, including the GHS 10 full-function remote mic that can optionally wire to it. The second mic possibility is why you see “INTRCM” as one of the soft key choices on that 3.2” display, and it—along with the 20 watt hailer and a NMEA 2000 data interface—are about all that differentiate the $400 VHF 200 from the $250 VHF 100 seen below.
I finally got my hands on a Standard Horizon HX850S GPS/VHF, and I’m almost in love! Even if the 1.75” screen seen above, and bigger here, is not quite as bold as the first marketing images promised, I find it quite readable in any sort of light. The screens are well designed, too, offering channel labels if you want, or COG/SOG/position, and fairly intuitive access to the radio’s complete setup and DSC menus. A little time with the manual is necessary to understand some of the radio’s more obtuse capabilities and button combinations, but that’s to be expected with so much functionality built into such a small package.
So I’ve been testing two marine WiFi systems. First up is newcomer 5MileWiFi, pictured above. Its heart is in that little machined aluminum case which delivers Internet to your PC via that main USB cable, also used to get some of the power needed to run what’s claimed to be a 1,000 mW WiFi transceiver. The side mounted USB cable is just for added power and can go to your PC or any other USB power source. The $399 package also includes 25’ of LMR240 coax and a 38” high 9 dbi omni-directional marine WiFi antenna.
I can tell you with some certainty that an RSSI value of -106 usually shows as one tiny bar on my Verizon Centro phone and usually means that it can ring when called but is darn flaky in terms of actual verbal communication. It’s pretty much the standard Verizon cell status around my house and even most places right outside. What I can’t tell you is whether the Cell Ranger Stix amplifier I’m testing was on or off when I took this photo…because it seemed to have no effect on the signal whatsoever!
Big yacht IT is challenging, and thus I nearly had to tickle local marine networking ace Nik DeMaria (Blue Maple Systems) to capture his naturally grinning good nature, above and bigger here. I’ve known Nik “since he was knee high to a grasshopper,” as we say around here, but now he can make my head spin with talk of stuff like static IP addresses and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)—his worries last week. You see, he and John Gass were just wrapping up the installation of a KVH V7 mini-VSAT aboard the 115’ sailing yacht Tenacious, and while they termed that chore “easy”—even pulled it off in less than a day—Nik was looking for an elegant way to manage the vessel’s multiple Internet users and sources. I think he’s still looking, and maybe some of you Panbo-reading IT types can help…
Good times: I spent most of yesterday testing electronics on Gizmo and visiting around Camden Harbor. One system I was mostly pleased with is this little wireless communications and navigation PAN (Personal Area Network), if I may apply a long name for what’s a fairly doable setup these days (bigger picture here). The Palm Centro is running ActiveCaptain Mobile and has the Region 101 raster portfolio loaded on its 1gb micro SD card. That’s a single 353 mg file containing all charts from the Canadian border to Block Island, which scale, zoom, and pan very quickly, and look good. Better than the photo(s) actually, if you put the Centro’s transflective screen in direct sunlight or use its full blast backlighting in heavy overcast conditions.
Thanks to John Forder for pointing out the intriquing Cell Ranger Stix wireless cell phone booster. It claims to use a microprocessor to analyze a cell signal coming in through its little antenna and then add 50 dB of gain (2–3 bars!) as it retransmits the signal in a six foot radius around that 12v lighter-plug-like casing, all for a $150 and nearly zero install effort. If true that would definitely be useful on many a boat, and maybe in my office where my recently acquired Verizon Centro is barely usable. In fact, using a “field test” code found at wpsantennas.com—field test numbers are more responsive, detailied, accurate than screen bars—I’ve learned that it has an RSSI of -105 (very, very poor), and an EVDO signal strength of 107 (meaning unknown, but should change with amplification).
When I was researching a PMY article about VSAT and Fleet Broadband sat comms, I asked a fairly reliable source what would happen if Inmarsat lost one of its new I-4 satellites. He rolled his eyes and said, “they’d be dead.” You see, while it only takes three of the new I-4 satellites to provide nearly global BGAN/FB service, the things are huge, and hugely expensive. Which is why getting the third and final bird into orbit was a big deal. Plus the launch has been delayed at least once due to the failure of a similar missile carrying a smaller satellite. I imagine tension was wicked high when the Proton Breeze lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last night. Can we imagine the financial stress induced watching a critical business asset—for which, by the way, there is no backup—blast into space (especially now that we know how much angst a little electronics bankruptcy can cause). Well, the I-4 F3 satellite launched fine, and thus Fleet Broadband should become global soon. Meanwhile, KVH recently announced that its mini_VSAT service is also going global. I presume that if things go right, a company can do well with satellite communications, but it does seem like a hairy business.
It’s wonderful that the marine electronics world is still small enough that a tiny company with a good idea can get somewhere. But I’m not sure that having your Icom M504 VHF modified by Marine Werke so it can output AIS audio signals is a good idea. For one thing, I believe only the included Shipplotter software can demodulate AIS audio, so a user can’t use this AIS target data with other software or plotters. Furthermore, to get AIS, you’ll have to tune the Icom to Channel 87 and I dare say that also scanning safety channels might significantly reduce AIS performance.
