LED lantern in a bottle
Tip of the hat to Scuttlebutt for today’s kind News Brief about Panbo. It’s been crazy here, it’s Friday, and I’m going to keep it quite light. So meet LightCap, a 32 oz water jug with a solar...
Monthly Archive: April 2005
Cool blue cordless
Alrighty, then, it’s Uniden Day. While getting links for the earlier entry, I spotted this new Bluetooth cordless phone system that just might be terrific for bigger yachts. The key feature is connectivity between...
Uniden WHAMx4 wireless VHF mics
I actually think that the most important innovations in marine networking are happening over wires — Ethernet and NMEA 2000 wires — but some of the wireless happenings certainly are, er, sexy. I tested Uniden’s first...
Angry about NMEA 2000
Hot words about NMEA 2000 were tossed into a recent rec.boats.electronics thread: “Oh, boy! Another proprietary, improperly documented, non-standard data protocol designed to keep the marine electronics assholes swimming in money for another decade…” Yike! I believe...
Nitty gritty comms at SetSail.com
SSB SailMail, Sat C, GSM phones using GPRS data, Iridium, marina WiFi, Internet Cafes (“Curses to French keyboards!”), online banking, malicious spyware — damn, some long range cruisers are becoming IT professionals. Yesterday, SetSail.com put up a series of...
Wireless multifunction display?
Just got a note from a beloved, though former, in-law who’s wicked frustrated in his quest to find the right radar/plotter for his classic sail boat. The Raymarine C80 would do the trick, except for all...
Satellite Internet speed doubles
Yesterday KVH announced that ISDN (by-the-minute data) service for its big Fleet 77 Inmarsat communications systems is going from 64 to 128 kilobits per second. And hence “with KVH’s exclusive Velocity™ Acceleration software, broadband data...
Charting Points of Interest
Another important feature of the new Max and Platinum chart card formats I wrote about earlier today is their vastly expanded POI (Points of Interest) databases. Click on an icon and you can find out a marina’s phone...
Sexy C-Map Max charts?
Why do C-Map’s full page ads for its new Max chart format feature a woman wearing a cartographic body suit? Even the model looks like she thinks it a goofy idea! Especially since Max has...
Doing boat WiFi right
I’ve learned a lot about how boaters are using WiFi along the our coasts, and it’s darn exciting. Savvy folks are using the Internet to the max for fun, work, and even cruise planning (weather, slip...
