So I spent a good part of my weekend wiring four different DSC radios to two plotters and a PC, and experimenting with some of the selective voice calling, position requesting, and caller plotting functions then possible. It turned out that the NMEA 0183 interfacing was relatively easy, and the DSC stuff worked pretty well, but there were some hassles. I’ll probably write several entries on this subject this week, but let me start with some comments on Icom’s new CommandMicIII.
It’s nice! Fully pictured here
, you can see how hunky it is (my hand is average size). That means a big, fine sounding speaker. And, while those small screen fonts are quite small, they are sharp. This remote mic will do everything the radio can do, including all the DSC (there’s a distress button on the back). I particularly like the “jog dial”, which alternately controls channel, volume, squelch, menu settings and more. In fact you might say I’m a knob guy; for instance, I think the ‘rotary’ controls on NavNet and Raymarine E/C machines are very desirable features. But, wait, I’ve way outgrown the dirty mind of a 12 year old boy. That’s why I didn’t really notice this finger photo until the finger owner made noise about it, and I didn’t even notice the giggly conjunction of VHF channel 69 and the word “pleasure” (Icom’s fortuitous label for this ‘recreational’ or ‘non-commercial’ channel), until I saw the photo above. Honest.
When I had lunch in Miami with the Sea Smart folks, they showed up with a Mystic, the somewhat weird but wonderful VHF/GPS hybrid that Uniden introduced about three years ago. I tested it then and was very impressed with design, build, and performance (gave it an FKP award, too). I still am, and now you can buy one for $300, or $390 with all U.S. Charts. (But note that Magellan Blue Nav charts are getting old, and you can only load one small area at a time into the Mystic).
Think about what the Mystic would give you in combination with a Sea Smart account. Where ever you went within 5 watt VHF range of the coast stations, you’d have live operator access, phone service, web tracking, and DSC distress calling in addition to regular VHF comms and a little B&W plotter. Plus you can plot other DSC radios on a Mystic, and vice versa. The thing’s too big to swing on your belt but easy to lug from boat to boat, or across an island. I’m hoping to see a Mystic upgrade or competitor someday, plus a bunch of smaller handhelds with GPS/DSC built in, no plotting. (But I do not know of anything about to happen).
Well, so far a very small sampling of Panbites (?) is not too excited about Sea Smart. But I am. I think it may well become a “no brainer” for offshore fishermen, long distance coastal cruisers, and others, especially once it’s fully rolled out. I for one am tickled that at last there’s a service that makes good use of DSC. Especially as I’ve been in touch with the U.S.C.G. again, and the latest on Rescue 21 is discouraging. At least they've finally got a revised implementation schedule—above, and bigger here
—which is better than the situation I wrote about last year. But check it out. Full implementation of R21, once expected by 12/2006, is now set for 2011!
Now Sea Smart is not meant for distress calling, but its call center will be able to hear DSC distress calls and relay them to the Guard if needed. I like that, and think its another reason to wish the service well. But there is a contrarian view, expressed to me by a couple of you via the back channels. There have been issues with Sea Tow and other towing services over salvage claims—in fact I once wrote about such a questionable claim, and then about all the follow up letters. So cynics theorize that Sea Smart’s long range coastal VHF network will give Sea Tow franchisees a head start on possible salvage operations. My take:
* Sea Smart might make any towing service better because it will give you a more reliable way to get a call through or get help from an operator, and the operators will know exactly where you are, even if you aren’t sure.
* Sea Tow especially gets better because its dispatch center is in the room next to Sea Smart. (And the combined subscription package, $262, is going to appeal to many).
* Every boater should learn exactly what the difference is between towing and salvage.
As explained a bit yesterday, Sea Smart has taken over the infrastructure—towers, radios, and marine operator licenses—that MariTEL shut down in 2003. As shown above, from seasmartvhf.com, the service is live on the west coast of Florida, coming to the NJ/NY/CT shore soon, and supposedly the whole U.S. coast by late 2007. Like the old service, Sea Smart is primarily offering ship-to-shore phone calls, but at a flat rate that’s much simpler and more reasonable than it used to be. Range, of course, will usually outdo even the most souped up cell phone setup, and the operators can supposedly supply “information on the nearest fuel dock or restaurant…” (though I’m not clear about far the Long Island, NY, call center is able or willing to go with this sort of ‘concierge’ service).
At any rate, current Sea Tow members get unlimited calls, including U.S. long distance charges, for $144 per year, while non-members pay $204. Note that each call is limited to five minutes and the service does not support shore-to-ship calls. (Note also that the shore side of your phone conversation can be heard by anyone tuned to the channel, and, if this service takes off, calling slots could get scarce). Sea Smart had a temporary station set up at the Miami show and I tried a call to my cell. It was somehow pleasingly retro to place it with a live operator and the voice quality was quite good.
Getting the Sea Smart operator is just a matter of selecting the right local channel (the possibilities are: 24–28 or 84–86) and holding down the transmit button for 5 seconds, listening for an automated confirmation message, and then holding the button for another 5 seconds. DSC is not actually needed to connect with the operator, but Sea Smart requires that you have an MMSI along with a DSC radio attached to a GPS. That means that once the operator gets your MMSI he or she can poll your radio for a position. Sea Smart seems to have two reasons to push DSC. One is that when help is needed the call center can then very easily give good position information to the adjoining Sea Tow dispatch center. Another is that DSC polling lets Sea Smart include Automatic Vessel Location (AVL) as part of the service. The screen shot below, and bigger here, shows you how, say, your family might check on your fishing trip.
I have even more noodling on this subject but I’m really curious what you all are thinking. Might you sign up for Sea Smart when it goes live in your area?
Researching Sea Smart is getting me nostalgic. Back in the 70’s—when I was running a daysailer, delivering yachts, dragging scallops…out on the water a lot— Camden Marine was a tiny independent company with an antenna on a local ‘mountain’, a license to operate 2 “public correspondence” VHF channels, and a few staff who took turns handling the calls from one’s home. Back then, way before cell phones, they had a nice business patching through calls from summer cruisers, lobstermen, etc. They also had such good range that they sometimes relayed distress calls to the Coast Guard. The operators were easily the best known voices on the Bay, and it was a comfort to know that they were almost always listening. (Plus you could hear both sides of any phone call, and listening in was a popular anchorage entertainment.)
You may know the rest of the story. Cell phones really hurt the business, but then an ambitious company called MariTEL bought up almost all the coastal stations (plus more spectrum from the FCC), centralized operations, and made extravagant plans to improve the technology, enabling DSC driven automated dialing, e-mail, etc. Six years ago, I was writing excitedly about MariTEL claims that it would soon be able to hear DSC calls 50–100 miles off the entire U.S. coast and its strong hints that the Coast Guard was going to contract their service in order to quickly adopt DSC distress call ears. But before some of the hype even got into print, the general telecom boom came crashing down, and MariTEL’s big plans with it. In 2003 they even shut down the regular marine operators (and I wrote about their rise and fall with some bitterness here).
Well, guess what? MariTEL still exists, at least as a spectrum and tower owning skeleton of a company, and Sea Tow is licensing its VHF assets to create a very interesting service called Sea Smart. The marine operator is back, though this time around she’s apt to have a “New Yawk” accent. More soon.
Inside a Hotbox is a cellular highspeed data card—EVDO, Edge, whatever you want. The box converts the cellular connection into a local WiFi hotspot. The company that makes it has equipped the particular model above with an M-Tec cellular amp, a high dB marine antenna, and even a VOIP phone, which sounds like quite the package. Unfortunately its Web site doesn’t really detail this setup very well, and also leaves out the daunting $4,500 price tag! The bigger picture, though, is that I’m hearing more and more about this cell-to-WiFi concept, and I like it. I even came across a Norwegian company that’s at least planning a product like this that also integrates NMEA 0183 data. That’s a real wow, because then your boat’s hotspot can both put you online and feed GPS, etc. to your charting program, AND the same data can be send out to the Internet, meaning that, “external users with appropriate software installed can follow the boat’s progress, …a very powerful tool for tracking, monitoring or fleet management.” High speed cellular data is also the foundation of the interesting KVH/Microsoft product (WiFi too) I got a glimpse of in Miami. KVH has now posted a press release, but pricing isn’t on it. I’m told that the system with an external amp and antenna will be “under $1,500” with “all-you-can-eat Internet and MSN TV service under $100/month.” Plus I think you can pop the PCMIA card and use the cell data connection off the boat, in your laptop. Given all that, and KVH customer support, the souped up Hotbox looks a little pricey.
Are you old enough to remember Superman on TV? “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!!!” That’s what came up in my fuddled brain when first presented with Standard’s first-of-its-kind what-the-heck-is-that? VHF and chart plotter combo machine. If you look close, the screen above is an obvious dummy, but I saw the unit running in Miami and was impressed. That screen is a 7” wide style—hi res (800 x 480 pixels) and hi bright. The CVP fully supports C-Map Max and its interface looked quite polished up compared to the old CP series (which wasn’t bad). The radio is full Class D DSC with a 30 watt hailer/horn built in, and you can add two RAM+ or telephone style mics if desired. You can also hang a black box fishfinder on this ($1,100 MAP priced) thing, making it quite the all-in-one for, say, a center console fishing machine or a tuna tower, or a sailboat helm. The designed-in ‘handle’ on the right side might be useful in those places too. Of course all the DSC benefits of interfacing GPS/plotter and VHF come built-in, just add an MMSI to get position with distress call, plot your buddies, etc. By the way, that area of marine communications is about to get a boost as Sea Tow rolls out an interesting new marine operator service called Sea Smart. More on that in few weeks.
The Miami Boat Show is next week and the new product teasers are coming in fast and furious. How about a KVH cellular modem combined with MSN TV, which is an Internet appliance and portal meant to be used with a TV screen? Yup, it’s the old WebTV (which served my dear mom well for a while), but now in its second incarnation…faster, more able, etc. This wireless unit promises DSL speeds using EVDO cellular data and 50 to 80 Kbps using the more pervasive 1xRTT. The concept was actually announced at CES in early January, but the marine version will be detailed in Miami. It appears to be a simple product that might please a lot of boaters looking for easy Web and e-mail. And whereas the box also becomes a WiFi hotspot, it may even have geek appeal. More information, hopefully including hardware and subscription costs, after Miami.
The full name is Marine Technologies and they’re coming to market with a large portfolio of marine cellular gear. At the top of the line (nearly $1,000) are wireless amps like the above, which claim to provide a carrier-friendly gain ranging from “-40 to +20 dB, 70 dB maximum”. That’s a lot. Marine Technologies is a spin off from a big Florida marine electronics installer, and the folks involved say that their technology blows everything else (i.e. Digital Antenna and Shakespeare Marine) away. One drawback to the high performance, however, is that you have to choose your amp for either 800 MHz (Alltel, ATT, Cingular, etc.) or 1900 MHz (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc.).
M-Tec also sells these amps in a neat package with the new and very wireless Motorola SD4500 cordless phone system. If you use a compatible Moto cell, you could step aboard your yacht and drop it into a Cell Dock where it would be charged and amplified. Your base station (above) can wirelessly connect to 3 of these docks, even pass address books, plus you can have up to 7 wireless handsets (left) around the boat using the cell lines and a regular phone line (land or satellite). I’ve written about the advantages of a “wireless wireless” boat cell system; this is wireless x 4, all from one marine source, and it looks like it will make some yachtsmen very happy. More on the M-Tec line soon.
PS 12/14: CNET just put up a pretty thorough review of the SD4500 system, as well as RCA’s Cell Docking System, which is less sophisticated but works with many more cell phone models.
Uniden announced the ES VHF series over a year ago, but the UM525 and UM625c above (bigger here) didn’t materialize until fairly recently, and the UM825 is still missing. It bothers me to have written about gear that wasn’t really available, but, wow, it’s hard not to like these radios. The color model is particularly noteworthy. Like the Navman/Northstar pilot, color seemed to really stimulate interface design creativity. The 625c does all sorts of things you’ve never seen in a VHF, but yet is very easy to use. It also sounds good. So do the accessory WHAM 4X wireless mics, which so far have met my expectations. You can wander hundreds of yards from the base while still controlling it, (as long as there’s not a serious 2.4 GHZ blocking wall in the way). You can also intercom to all or individual stations, as shown on the screen. I’ve got further plans for these and some other test radios—more DSC calling, GPS hook ups, setting up the two bases as a network, etc.—which I’ll report eventually. In the meantime Chuck Husick has published his own findings on the 525 and Whams in Yachting, but note that he got confused about the mics (these radios can support 4 Wham4X mics, not 2).
that their technology blows everything else (i.e. 
If you use a compatible Moto cell, you could step aboard your yacht and drop it into a Cell Dock where it would be charged and amplified. Your base station (above) can wirelessly connect to 3 of these docks, even pass address books, plus you can have up to 7 wireless handsets (left) around the boat using the cell lines and a regular phone line (land or satellite). I’ve written about the advantages of a “
The 625c does all sorts of things you’ve never seen in a VHF, but yet is very easy to use. It also sounds good. So do the accessory WHAM 4X wireless mics, which so far have met my