It’s official. Today Inmarsat flipped the switch on the marine version of BGAN, dubbed Fleet Broadband. It’s been a while coming, as noted here last March, but the good news is that the smallest dome turns out to be less than a foot tall. Thus the new KVH TracPhone FB250 is almost the same size as the company’s existing TP 252 dome (Inmarsat Mini-M), as shown above in a photo I took at the NMEA Conference back in mid-October when KVH officially introduced the products. The big difference is that the Mini-M offers “dial-up” style data service “up to 9.6 Kbps” while the FB250 offers a “standard IP” always-on connection “up to 284 Kbps”. The bad news is that this wee dome still costs about $13,000 and pay-as-you-go data is about $13.50 per MB. Now that data cost is less than the earlier Fleet series (which charged in megabits not megabytes), but it’s still wicked costly if you want to surf the Web the way most of us do at home or work.
After Tim Hasson (of TechYacht) sent a head’s up about how neatly this year’s Carib 1500 rally is being tracked, I had a look—the whole fleet seen above this morning, a couple of days out of Norfolk, VA—and agree. You can see for yourself here, either in Google Maps or Earth. The company responsible for collecting and presenting the data is Magnalox.net, while the fully automated GPS communicators on the boats are made by Axonn. The whole set up is quite a change from past rallies, as Tim notes: “In the past, I collected everybody's position via Single Sideband, then passed the info on to the web site guy for posting on the web (a rather tedious chore, you can imagine). I’ve been replaced by robots, and couldn't be more pleased.” But the funniest line, I think, goes to Rally organizer Steve Black, who was quoted thusly in a good Cruising World article about the Axonn tracker:
And apparently, it's even been "sailor-tested." Nothing is required of these self-contained transmitters, so no one needs to touch them. "That type of reliability becomes extremely important," says Black, "when you're dealing with a group of people who like to fiddle with things."
Axonn, incidently, seems to be quite involved in the SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker, discussed here in August and now actually available. Doug Ritter has done some great research on SPOT, and I think it may become quite popular with boaters. In fact, I’d be testing one right now if it weren’t for a certain PR company that seems to be having a hard time locating its elbow, if you know what I mean.
Standard Horizon plans to introduce this Bluetooth wireless VHF headset some time this winter (plus a VHF/GPS handheld). There isn’t a brochure or web link yet but these are the specs I recall: waterproof, 150 foot range, can be used either voice-activated (VOX) or push-to-talk (PTT), will sell for around $150, and will fit many S.H. radios.
I’ve long liked the concept of a handheld VHF with a built-in GPS and hence built-in DSC alarm capability (just add MMSI). I made the case here in August. So wasn’t I tickled to see this prototype kicking around the Lowrance booth at NMEA, and later to hear that Standard Horizon is also planning a combo unit. But it was very much a prototype, in fact just an empty shell, and Lowrance could not say when it will be ready. Ditto Standard Horizon. And the naysayers still report that the needed engineering is challenging.
Sorry about my acronym thing! The relatively new and unknown Alden AE-3300 is a black box wide band receiver with included PC software that lets you easily receive Weatherfax, Navtex, Telex, and even medium and high frequency DSC messages, besides listening to most any frequency between 9 KHz and 30 MHz. Hence in marine terms it’s pretty much an all in one receiver. Check the screen shot full size
. Not only did the AE-3300 automatically demodulate the Navtex messages and save them as text files when tuned to 518 KHz, you can schedule automated channel changes (as I have for Boston Fax at the bottom of the screen). I found the AE-3300 easier to use than the Icom PCR 2500 I’m also testing in terms of finding and saving interesting frequencies, but that’s in part because it has less controls that I’m unfamiliar with (but may be valuable). I also compared the radios using the same antenna and HAM signal, and they performed very similarly. What the Icom has, besides lots more frequencies, is all sorts of ways to scan them, a more sophisticated memory banking system, and a wide pool of users and accessories. There’s even alternate Bonito RadioCom control software that seems to do the marine Weatherfax, Navtex, and Telex decoding chores, plus some non marine radio wizardry I’d never hear of like SSTV.
I’m back in Maine briefly, which means I’m back to testing a couple of black box wideband radio receivers. And I mean WIDE. The Icom PCR2500 can tune in most anything from 10 kHz to 3300 MHz—less a few gaps like the cell phone bands (you have to be official to get that model). And I’ve got a pretty serious antenna strung from the peak of my house across the backyard. Some mornings I’ve heard participants in the Waterway Net at 7.268 MHz LSB, including some who seemed to be in the Chesapeake and one voice I’m pretty sure I recognized as Marti Brown, who was probably transmitting from her boat in Marathon, FL. But frankly I’m fairly rusty at marine single sideband use, and know zilch about amateur radio (HAM) usage. So if anyone has suggestions for interesting frequencies I might find signal on up here at 45N 67W, I’m all ears, so to speak. I’m also very interested in hearing from you boaters who are using HF transceivers or receivers now, or plan to when you head over the horizon in that dream boat. I’m about to write a column about PC-controlled receivers specifically and the use of SSB, HAM, Navtex, Weatherfax, cruising nets, etc. Thanks in advance for any and all input!
Before you get overly excited, note that so far you can only use this new satellite phone in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. But according to the Inmarsat announcement, the service will be worldwide by the end of 2008. Like Iridium, the IsatPhone does data at a piddly 2400 bps, but that’s enough for email and file up/downloading, especially with a little help from XGate. And especially when the phone’s expected retail is “about $500” with voice calls at less than $1/minute. The data rate is 9600 when the phone is used in GSM mode; that’s Globalstar speed, but hopefully delivered more reliably by Inmarsat. There will also be a worldwide FleetPhone version of this service—with a down-below handset and external antenna—said to be “ideal” for smaller fishing vessels and yachts. “We are coming to shake up the satellite phone market,” says Inmarsat’s CEO. I think the reaction of a lot of offshore boaters will be: “Bring it on!”
As suggested yesterday, boaters who already have Globalstar phones—or are trying to decide between its lower rates and faster data versus Iridium’s greater reliability and range—want to know when Globalstar will fix the amplifier problems that have plagued duplex service over the last year or so. One bit of news is that Globalstar is now offering an online Optimum Availability Report. I can’t report first hand on its accuracy, but a bigger look at the screen above suggests that, at least around Bermuda, the non-optimal times are somewhat lengthy and thus this list might be really helpful. (A Panbo reader who is struggling with a new 1700 in the Bahamas, and who we’ll hear more from, calls it the “Gap Report” and notes that it’s frustratingly difficult to access with his…satellite phone!) But what about those four new satellites that went up in May? Globalstar recently told me this:
When I sailed from Bermuda to Maine in June, the happy electronics story was testing a Class B AIS. But there were other stories, like getting to try Iridium and Globalstar satellite phones side by side. One reason I’ve been slow with it is that neither phone seemed a real winner. In fact, that’s Vision of Johanna’s owner Bill Strassberg expressing our occasional “throw them both overboard” feelings.
If you check the bigger image, you’ll see the FM band button, a welcome first for a fixed VHF radio. But maybe better yet, I think, is the Lowrance style NMEA 2000 plug on the back.
