Monthly Archive: July 2007

Gar & Ray 5″ fish finding, first impressions 5

Gar & Ray 5″ fish finding, first impressions

RayA60_Garmin545s_sonar_cPanbo

I got the test Garmin 545s and a new Raymarine A60 installed on Gizmo and took a test run around my local Lake Megunticook. I don’t think Navionics, Garmin, or any one else has electronic charts for this particular lake—or many lakes in Maine for that matter—so the plotter functions were pretty pointless. But I did get a taste of both their dual-frequency fishfinders…

Electra, Lyman-Morse on a roll 2

Electra, Lyman-Morse on a roll

Electra_helm_cPanbo

Despite indications that I only think about AIS, I do have some other subjects! A big one recently has been Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding. This morning I just finished up a PMY Sept. feature about the company’s woodworking department—now 50 crafts-people strong, and doing phenomenal work—and I’m researching an eventual electronics column about Electra, which began with an early June trail run. What a boat!…

Real world AIS B #2, the name game 3

Real world AIS B #2, the name game

AIS_B_Link2AIS_cPanbo crop

What luck that I got to monitor another active Class B transponder while testing one myself. As you can see above, and bigger in my first Nauticast B post, ACR’s included “Link2AIS Class-B” software identified the training ship Spirit of Bermuda’s AIS as a B model. Coastal Explorer did not make this distinction but it did decipher Spirit’s name and other “static” information. As mentioned in my one offshore post, none of the five ships I spoke with were getting our name on their Class A AIS displays…