Panbo commenters don’t seem very interested in Spot sharing, but I think it’s a cool deal for long range cruisers like Milt and Judy Baker, not to mention working mariners like Capt. Richard Rodriguez. Note how the Baker’s custom message is displayed next to their anchorage on the French Riviera, above and bigger here . And today I notice that Mad Mariner apparently has arranged with West Marine for an extra special Spot deal ($132), and that West customer product reviews are all five star. Even the SSCA offshore guys are taking a cautious look at it
I was pleased to find this fine set of gauge configuration options on the Maretron DSM250. Note how you can set the RPM dial’s range, tick marks, and warning colors. Nice! Note too the live demo of the gauge you’re building (there are RPMs and other engine PGNs on the Panbo network now, thanks to a Lowrance simulator). Display customization is one reason why virtual gauges can be superior to real ones, but so far few of the N2K instruments I’m testing take much advantage of the possibilities. You can’t even set the range on either the GMI 10 or ST70 speed dials, which means you’ll constantly be reminded of how fast you can’t go. And, good as the DSM250 is, it doesn’t even have a speed gauge yet, or a depth graph.
It’s been a while since Jeppesen bought C-Map, and even longer since the 9.0 version of NNS (Nobeltec Navigation Software) came out. But the new versions of VNS and Admiral are now shipping, and looking good too (big Admiral screen here). Of course, the major change is that the programs now support C-Map MAX Pro cartography, which is why they’re called MAX Pro and not version 10. Besides a world portfolio of some 30,000 charts—versus Passport’s 10,000–another bit of nice news is that everyone who currently owns NSS 9 gets a free upgrade to Max Pro, and a free MAX Pro chart region for every Passport region owned, and a free copy of the new Raster Plus Pack. (Owners of earlier NSS versions get various deals, depending, as explained in the press releases.)
Last winter, thanks to Lee Guite of East Boothbay, I tried some LED bulbs Lee used to replace the incandescent ones in the Aqua Signal nav lights aboard his Dulcinea. Lee got pretty carried away researching available replacement bulbs and the ones he finally chose were “flux” models from the LED Shop in Australia. In the photo above I was trying to get a camera comparison of his steaming light versus an OGM combo LED running light. They both seemed fairly effective, but now the LED Shop has more powerful SMT bulbs, and Orca Green Marine has dropped the multi-LED models altogether in favor of single LED lights. I don’t know much about LEDs, but they do seem to be in a state of rapid technological change, which means that one LED may perform quite differently than another, and none of them may be what we’ll be using a few years hence.
Check the bigger image; is that not a pretty sweet install, even if I do say so myself? There’s also some interesting screen detail here, like the handsome water temperature graph the GMI 10 can put up. Just behind its Menu button are choices of range and time. But the Garmin does not yet do a depth graph like the ones seen on the IS20 Graphic and ST70. On the latter you can change time ranges from 1 minute to 24 hours with just the left/right buttons, which is cool, but wouldn’t it be nice if Raymarine put the current depth in bold font in that white space upper right? The Simrad graph covers a few minutes and has no controls, but I do like that icon reminding you that the depth is being measured from the keel. All screens, by the way, are at max brightness, except the Garmin, which is at 60%. Next week we’ll see how they look in direct and filtered sunlight. Now here’s a question: if you were photographing these for a powerboat and fishing magazine, what screens would you use?
Can Panbo reader Rolf network the NavNet 3D version of MaxSea Time Zero straight to NN3D radar and GPS compass aboard his Regina 43 (as he graphically dreamed of above)? The idea seems conceivable given that NN3D radar scanners are independent Ethernet entities, and can even bridge in NMEA 2000 sensors, but I’ve confirmed from Furuno that you must have at least one of its NN3D processors in the system. That’s because only a Furuno MFD or Black Box can be the Master of a network, able to “act as a DHCP server and distribute IP address to any other Ethernet device (Radar Antenna, Sounder, Computer, ...).” MaxSea Time Zero is going to work nicely in an NN3D network, sharing charts and all sensor data, but it can only be a “slave” in terms of network architecture (and it also won’t be able to do some configuration tasks like aligning a scanner).
“I chastised the children for their lack of destructive ambition, handed out sticks and suggested they use the handhelds as drums, instead. They started whacking away.” Lenny Rudow’s Handheld Stress Test,published yesterday on Mad Mariner, has to be one of the funniest electronics articles ever. Plus it’s good to know what abuse these Garmin, Lowrance, Raymarine, and Uniden GPS and VHF units can take. They all survived the kids and even the flush test. I’ve always appreciated Lenny’s work—which runs from fishing to electronics—and enjoyed getting to know him when we played judges together in Miami…but had no idea how creatively destructive he could be.
My obsession with NMEA 2000 instruments continues. To better test and photograph them in real light conditions, I installed the array in a single, more serious panel. The weapon of choice was that 3 5/8" hole saw above, which is a little bigger than needed but gave me wiggle room for final alignment. It would have worked for surface mounting the Maretron DSM 250 too, but I decided to flush mount it so it didn’t overwhelm the others. The ST70 can also be flush mounted, while the others are all surface only (correction: Furuno will offer a flush mount kit). Note that I did the layout on a template (which, in my case, also became a backing piece), which I then used to make neater and surer cutouts in the white finish panel. A good idea if you are actually cutting holes in your helm or cockpit!
The SPOT satellite messenger is about to get more attractive to many boaters. Originally it wasn’t all that easy to share your tracking with friends and family; in fact, to do so you had to share your entire Spot account user name and password. But now Spot is beta testing a pretty sophisticated feature that enables Web sharing of both tracks and messages. Above, and bigger here, is a zoom of a shared page I recorded over the weekend; every 10 minute tracking isn’t perfect for driving, but #14 is the exact parking spot I occupied at Rankin’s, my favorite hardware store.
Milltech Marine is carrying a new AIS display of particular interest to power-sensitive offshore sailors. The Vesper Marine AIS WatchMate has a 5–inch “daylight readable” monochrome screen, but purportedly only draws 1.2 watts average, 2.5 max. The $499 unit is not a receiver and does not do graphic target plotting, but I read through the preliminary manual and was impressed by how thoroughly the designers—who are offshore sailors—thought out the details of collision avoidance. For instance, WatchMate not only has range and CPA/TCPA alarms with sophisticated filtering, but also supports four “profiles” so you can easily switch setups in different conditions like “offshore” or “coastal”. It strikes me that WatchMate would also work well with a Class B transponder, though of course you’d still need a PC connection to set it up and, sigh, you can’t buy one in the U.S. yet. Note, too, that those NMEA 0183 ports shown below are actually wires in a single cable, and should be fairly easy to install in a waterproof way, plus there are several other possible install configurations. Hopefully Milltech or Vesper will make the manual available soon.
