The illustration above and the term "SAR gadgets" are both borrowed from the final issue of On Scene, published until 2009 by the USCG Office of Search and Rescue (downloads here). But no worries, On Scene is now a blog, and hence the times-they-are-a'changing illustration, which also serves well for a Panbo entry about evolving SAR gadgets. On Monday, I'll be speaking to a group of companies developing SAR communications equipment along with representatives of the agencies that regulate such gear and the ones like USCGSAR which answer the calls. My task is to articulate what boaters may want to see in future SAR gadgets, and I'd like your help...
DAME Awards will be chosen at METS this coming week for multiple categories, but there are electronical things well beyond the main marine electronics category discussed on Thursday. Consider, for instance, how the ODEO Flare seen above attempts to replace pyrotechnics with four lasers and a revolving prism. It does cost almost 100 pounds, but purportedly stays lit for 10 hours on 2 AA batteries, and it won't burn you. Also in the Lifesaving and Safety Equipment category are SeeTrac's Jet-trak high-end PWC tracking system, McMurdo's SmartFind S5 AIS SART, and Weatherdock's easyRescue, which seems to be a personal-size AIS SART. And of course there's the Marine Related Software category...
Though already a fan of SPOT for reasonably easy and inexpensive boat tracking, I didn't realize until yesterday that there is a slick way to track whole fleets of Spot-equipped vessels (or back country runners, dog sleds, whatever), even with photos and commentary on the same site. Go to the Adventure Zone and select the NARC Rally for a current example. I'm not sure, but the service -- provided by TrackMe360, which rents Spots, among other things -- may even be free. And note how spread out and "off course" the NARC fleet (more info here) is, due to the atrocious weather that's plagued the Northeast lately. One thing I'm more sure of is that boats like these will find Spot services easier to use once they can install Hug systems, instead of using handhelds...
As best I can tell, Rich Owings at GPStracklog is the first to write up a field test of the interesting wireless pairing of a specially designed DeLorme handheld mapping GPS with a specially mated Spot Satellite Communicator, and he's pretty excited about what he found. Yes, you can type a 41 character message from anywhere with Spot coverage and post it to Facebook or Twitter, or send it to one of several pre-defined e-mail/text groups. And that includes quite a lot of ocean and coast, as we saw even with the first generation Spot Messenger. And even though DeLorme's core clientele are terrestrial types, I notice that the PN60w/Spot system (and its PN-Series siblings) now support Navionics Gold SD chart cards (and HotMaps lakes), as well as NOAA raster downloads...
We've had a run of interesting new products this week, but this may be the topper. That cast-aluminum "wheel" -- wrapped with I'm not sure what and threaded for a stainless steel masthead mount that's grounded to a Dynaplate -- is a new lightning protection technology called a Streamer Inhibitor from a new company called Lightning Electrotechnologies. I've posed it with the Lightning Master Static Dissipater which generated a fair bit of skeptical commentary when I took it off Gizmo's masthead last summer. The Inhibitor seems to be related to the Dissipater, but different. Understanding lightning and how you might avoid it is very challenging, and I have yet to form strong opinions one way or another...
The first time was the best. I was tootling down the Bay in May when I tested the ACR AquaLink View PLB. I'd already appreciated its high build quality, and how neatly instructions about how to activate its two self test modes and primary distress function are explained right on the casing. Then when I pressed the GPS Test button for five seconds, it was very nice to have the small LCD screen show the procedure step-by-step and advise me to give the antennas a good sky view. And it was impressive that the GPS -- perhaps never used before, or at most tested in Florida -- got (and displayed) a position in well less than a minute. (In fact, the whole test procedure is so quick that I've had a hard getting a good photo with the scrolling screen in action.) But the kicker was how my cell phone buzzed a moment later with a text message confirmation that the beacon's test signal had made it through the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system, along with a link to its accurately mapped position...
I believe you're looking at the first DSC-based MOB alarm available in the U.S. It's BriarTek's ORCAdsc, and it sells for $275 per alarm (a reasonable seeming price that got Lenny's attention). It automatically activates when submerged in salt water, and a regular DSC VHF radio is all you need to get alarmed onboard (which is what I've always liked about using DSC for MOB). The BriarTek site doesn't list this new product yet (coming soon), but you will learn how serious the company is about MOB electronics. The ORCAdsc materials I have here, including the manual, also suggest a carefully designed and built device, though it turns out that DSC MOB doesn't work exactly like I thought it would...
I once heard a gentleman who probably knew what he was talking about complain fairly bitterly about the electronic radar reflectors called SARTs. He said they'd been pushed on the GMDSS by a member nation where they were made and that they'd never proven themselves effective in search and rescue operations. Which is just one reason why the new Jotron AIS SART is an interesting development...
The new ACR AquaLink View sure looks like the most sophisticated and best performing Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) ever designed. Built-in buoyancy, 6.3 Watts of 406 MHz distress output, a 66 channel GPS receiver, 30 hours of battery life...the specs go on and on. But that's not all. This PLB is also designed to take maximum advantage of ACR's new 406Link through-satellite testing service, including its ability to deliver SPOT-like "I'm OK" messages via email and cell phone. 406Link also offers some level of service, even free testing, to the owners of many EPIRBs and PLBs, including lots of models not made by ACR...
Among the new products to be shown at the Miami Boat Show next week, FLIR just announced both a lower cost fixed M-Series and two new higher-end hand-held First Mate models. The new M (no model # yet) packages a single 320x240 thermal cam with the same excellent bullet casing and Ethernet controller(s) that I tested as the M-626L last fall, with dual payload 640x480 thermal and low light cams. The purported retail of the new cam will be $12,000, which will likely mean an under 10g street price judging from some outlets for the existing models. It's great to get the price down on this valuable safety tool, but it reminds me of the occasional value I saw in also having the low light camera. The shot above was taken in daylight, but the thermal camera would have seen out the harbor as well as it does at night if it weren't for the downpour. After the break, you'll see what it missed...
