A review by Dan Corcoran: The Raymarine ST60 Graphic, ST70, and the Garmin GMI10 began a transformation away from specialized instrument displays for wind, depth, speed, compass, and autopilots in large part due to the availability of sensor information from data buses like Seatalk and NMEA-2000. Although the days of single purpose instrument displays with direct connect sensors and dedicated digits or analog needles has not yet come to an end, mostly due to cost and power advantages such displays have in an environment where sunlight readable displays is a must, the time is near...
That's my good buddy Jack aboard the 21-foot powerboat he's named Buddy. The photo was taken a couple of Saturdays ago when he had just relaunched the boat after an extensive refit, and I'd like to think that Jack is indicating his happiness with my electronics advice. He's a dedicated Garmin user -- and the man responsible for the gorgeous all-Garmin helm I featured here -- but he was thinking of going with a GPSMap 546 until I talked him into the 740...
The nice Navico news today is that the original Broadband Radar BR24 scanner is getting replaced by a new model called 3G, which "delivers two-times greater RF transmit power and 30 percent more range and target detection." You can see the improved performance at 6 mile range on the splt screen shot above (click on image to see larger version). And get this: The new Simrad 3G radomes will retail at $1,700, considerably less than the original...
All those bodies boating in the rain represent a lot of money spent over a problem never fully "solved"...which may be why I let the story gather dust for many months. Two are representatives from Raymarine who drove several hours to investigate why the boat's new ST7002 control head and SPX30 course computer autopilot system was still making the owner very unhappy. The other two are employees of Wayfarer Marine, which had already put about ninety hours -- some of it uncharged -- into what had seemed at first to be a simple replacement needed because the boat's original Raymarine 300 course computer (manual PDF still available) stopped turning in one direction. Anyone with an autopilot, or concerns about the cost of marine electronics, might want to know more about what happened...
I've already written about the debut of Simrad NSS "touch sensible" MFDs, as well as some of what I learned about Navico in Spain, and today I'll discuss some of what I saw during the on-water demos. I was especially curious as to how the NSS replaces the NSE's super fast direct access keys. Actually, I don't think it's possible to swap screens faster, or easier, than those NSE dedicated Chart, Echo, Radar, etc. buttons, which get you last-layout-used with a quick press and a list of available layouts with long press. But the NSS comes fairly close...
Twenty-three days on a Russian ice breaker following Roald Amundsen's 1903 route through the Northwest Passage? Hell, yes, especially with David Burch -- navigator extraordinaire, and Starpath founder-- riding along as tutor and guide to the vessel's bridge. If I had the money and the time (heck, it took Amundsen three years), I'd seriously consider this opportunity. For one thing, the venerable Kapitan Khlebnikov is going back into government service, and this may be her last Passage passage. And for another, the high latitudes -- where compasses, celestial navigation, and even many forms of modern communications all get dicey -- are what nav-obsessed gents like Burch live for...
Say hello to Simrad's new NSS Sport series of multifunction displays -- the NSS7, NSS8, and NSS12 -- which are making their global debut today. They seem to have all the capabilities of the NSE series (which they can network with) plus a built-in GPS and, in the case of 7- and 8-inch sizes, a built-in Broadband fishfinder as well, along with quite competitive price tags (suggested retail prices of $1,895, $2,845 and $3,995 respectively). But the key feature is an LED backlit touch screen that is nearly as bright (1200 nits) as the NSE's (1500), and which Simrad has used to create a combination knob, button, and touch interface it's calling "Touch Sensible"...
When many readers sent me the GPS World article on GPS jamming, I was blasé. How could the U.S. government possibly allow LightSquared to put up 4,600 transcievers pumping broadband data services in the L band with such power that they'd significantly interfere with nearby GPS frequencies? As in complete failure at over half a mile for a high quality civilian GPS receiver like the nüvi 265W, even under an open sky, and almost six miles for a critical GNS 430W aviation unit (according to lab testing done by Garmin and Trimble, results PDF here). But then again I never thought our government would be dumb enough to kill the eLoran GPS back-up system just to save a few dollars...
Here's a clever idea. PYI worked with FLIR to create an accessory podlet for several of its Seaview MFD pods that serves as an integral casing for a relatively inexpensive ("just over $2,500") thermal camera core (info here). The core's output goes to the video input of whatever MFD is mounted on the working side of the pod so the user then has a simple forward-looking thermal view that can even be aimed using the pan and tilt abilities of the pod. There's a major limitation to this idea -- the fact that thermal can't see through glass or plastic -- but I can think of situations where it might make a lot of sense...
I wrote about Standard Horizon's new CPN series in December -- and in the current issue of Cruising World -- but now there's more detail up on the SH web site. I particularly like the booty shots of the 1010i and 700i because all those ports really speak to the technological convergence going on with this design. That's the theme I tried to weave through the February CW round-up of new electronics, which unfortunately isn't online yet, and had to be drastically cut due to space constraints anyway. But I'm getting a second chance, sort of, as I'm working on somewhat similar feature for the April issue of Yachting. It will still be shorter than the CW attempt, but it will be purely about how so many of the electronical things we do on boats are coming together, and how it's happening in such divergent ways...
, even under an open sky, and almost six miles for a critical 
