Here’s a reversal: I tested this Matys OnBoard Iridium/GSM distress/SMS/voice/email communicator months ago, and my PMY write-up is already online. There you can see the reassuring way the unit lets you know that an alarm message has been received, quickly too, as well as the system’s substantial cost. And the Matys site is good for the seemingly endless—tracking, weather, concierge, medical, etc.—services available.
A month or so ago reader Derek Love (thanks!) wrote in about an interesting combination VHF transceiver and AIS receiver previewed by Icom UK at the London Boat Show. It got a little coverage plus there’s an Icom UK web page about it, though that page seems oddly inaccessible from the main site. I’ve tried to find out more and what I hear is that the prototype is a small board that can be added to Icom M505 and M603 radios, but preferably during manufacturing, not as after-market mod, because of the waterproofing.
Doh! Earlier this week I wrote a PMY May column on marine satellite broadband, but despite lots of research only this morning learned that Iridium is also piling into this relatively small, if high dollar, niche…and with what looks like a really interesting new technology. The omni-directional antenna inside that 9" by 21" dome above has no moving parts, and yet can supposedly provide three phone lines and “up to” 128 Kbps of mobile Internet connectivity anywhere on the globe. Thats not nearly as fast as what VSAT and Mini-VSAT can do, but it’s darn close to Fleet Broadband 250 abilities, and may be plenty good enough for many offshore yachts and commercial boats. In fact, if Inmarsat’s IsatPhone looks like a competitive lunge at Iridium, this sure looks like the “touché”! The OpenPort press release doesn’t mince words:
This Northstar Explorer 725 VHF, along with its optional wireless handset, was one of the few entirely new electronics introductions seen at MIBS (at least if you’re a regular Panbo reader ;-). And compliments to Northstar for using real screens in these product shots, instead of pasting in dummies as is often the case. It is a bit humorous, though, that while the photographer did manage to power up the units, he clearly did not attach a GPS, which is why the fixed unit is plaintively displaying “PLEASE INPUT POSITION!” so that it can do its DSC duties properly.
Friday’s entry may not have been clear; I only meant to snipe at the New York Times (lightly), and not at Spot. In fact, Spot was one of my four picks for the electronics section of Sail’s annual Freeman K. Pittman Innovation Awards, mentioned earlier with other M.E. awards and now out in the February issue (though sadly not on line). While it is certainly not a PLB, I think Spot could be pretty useful on a boat, or ashore. But understanding well how it compares to PLBs is critical, and hence why I’m sniping at confused coverage.
I only mentioned testing this Standard Horizon CPV550 back in Nov., and that was about a fogging problem that I’m told can be readily fixed with dessicant bags. Now my short review is out in the Feb. PMY, and I’ll add a bit more detail. Neither of these photos really does the screen justice, but above, and bigger here , is the nicely iconic main menu, which also gives some sense of all the tasks this machine can address.
I’ve been looking forward to the two VHF/GPS/DSC handhelds I heard about last Fall, but was a bit surprised to find this Standard Horizon HX850S in a magazine and also available for preorders at Landfall (Standard is great at making radios, but press releases …not so much). The 850S looks very capable if maybe a bit clunky. The built-in 12 channel GPS is not only used for a full set of DSC functions but is also output, along with DSC messages, via a NMEA 0183 cable from the radio’s cradle.
The photo, bigger here , shows what a real winter we’re having on the coast of Maine, and it was taken before yesterday’s blizzard-rain-freeze event! The dashboard GPS tableau was because a motorcycle rider reported that sending a message from his SPOT may have caused his Garmin 276c to freeze up. But I drove around like this without problems (aside from getting laughed at); SPOT transmitted “OK” and “Help” messages fairly consistently, as seen earlier, and none of the plotters blinked.
Though my first SPOT test entry garnered no comments, I remain convinced that some boaters will go for this gadget/service once they fully understand what it can do for them. Actually, out on the water is where it may perform the most reliably. I’ve been trying SPOT in some tough situations and am learning that it needs a good sky view to work well. I had it out in the streets of New York City for several hours last week, and I don’t think it ever got a GPS position, and it only twice got a message off. By contrast, a little Lowrance XOG I’m testing could regularly get a fix on these same streets (which is where I last tried the AnyTrack, not midtown Manhattan but with many tall buildings). Of course SPOT does not claim to work in urban canyons, but I wonder about wilderness canyons or places with heavy, wet leaf cover. And I don’t understand why it isn’t able to indicate if it has a GPS fix, despite having four bi-color LEDs. {Correction: when you activate a SPOT function, it will indicate after a while if it does not have GPS fix, as—ahem!—explained in the manual.)
Since Sunday I’ve been testing a SPOT—the Globalstar-based “satellite messenger” first mentioned here in August—and I’m impressed. Check out the full size screen shot above, which shows me out in Muscongus Bay this morning (being shown a very cool cruising power cat, more info to come). The mapping is a little confusing because events are numbered backwards chronologically, and time is given in GMT (both quite fixable on the Web site, I think). So at #10 I activated SPOT’s “OK” function which sent a canned email/SMS, along with a Google Map link, to a list of people I’d set up on my SPOT Web page, where I can also customize the OK and Help messages. Then a few minutes later, at #9, I activated the tracking function which, as promised, sent an automatic position every ten minutes thereafter. Only position #7 is an anomaly; we weren’t over on that side of the island. At any rate, the unit is fairly easy to use, and seems to offer a lot of safety value and tracking/check-in function for the money. I do wish I’d had a chance to try it in Europe, which is supposedly under Globalstar’s not-quite-global footprint, but at least we do know that this technology works fine from Norfolk to the U.S.V.I., as discussed recently. Remember, Globalstar short messaging does not have the problems voice/email does…and, fellow yanks, here’s wishing you a fine Thanksgiving.
