Garmin AIS 300, first NMEA 2000 receiver
Today Garmin announced the $500 AIS 300, the first receiver to output NMEA 2000 as well as 0183. Which means that if you’re in Miami like I am, you can not only check out...
Monthly Archive: February 2010
Welcome MTA, MI for ME at last!
I’m not the sort of guy who usually spends time looking for diagrams and explanations regarding a field like Market Intelligence (MI), but I’m pretty darn sure that the Marine Electronics (ME) industry could...
AC33, Communications Challenges
From Dan Corcoran in Valencia, SP: Because of the great speeds of the two sailboats, this America’s cup will be held further from shore and on a longer race course than those of recent memory, causing tremendous challenges communicating on the race course. Even the judges are unsure that they will be able to communicate successfully in boats equipped like the one pictured above with retractable towers for VHF communications and satellite dishes.
AC on an iPad, Android coming too
Jeff Siegel of Active Captain (discussed here recently) is the first developer to submit a mock-up showing what his software might look like on an iPad (in response to my challenge), and it’s so intriguing it deserves a quickie entry…
Navionics Mobile Marine, a great app made better
I think it’s safe to presume that Navionics Mobile Marine is the best selling iPhone charting app in the U.S. and many other countries. In fact, as I just wrote in an April Yachting article, many iPhone boaters consider it a “no brainer” even if they also use other nav apps. But lookee here, they’ve rebuilt the entire thing, substantially improving both features and value. Today you can buy the US East Marine and East Lakes versions for $10 each, a steal really, but they are 166 and 535 megabyte files, which is a bit of an inefficient pain for all concerned. By contrast, the new $10 Marine&Lakes:US will be an easily updated 2 MB because it doesn’t come with data. BUT you’ll be able to download charts and lake maps for anywhere in the entire U.S., quite easily, and fresh direct from Navionics’ own servers. The greedy download illustrated above — note the chart and POI detail of Newport — took about 10 minutes on my home WiFi, and a much smaller download went fine even over AT&T’s poky Edge service. And there’s more…
Furuno NN3D, now with C-Maps by Jeppesen
When MaxSea bought Nobeltec from Jeppesen last Fall, there were hints that one somewhat counter-intuitive result might be a new partnership between Furuno/MaxSea and Jeppesen, but I didn’t think we’d see results this quickly. Today Furuno announced that NavNet 3D displays will soon support a worldwide portfolio of “C-Map by Jeppesen” MapMedia charts, in addition to the NOAA raster and vector and “Datacore by Navionics” MapMedia charts they already support, thus making them “the most versatile” chart plotters available. It sounds great, but there are some details to note…
SeaView & ScanStrut redux, pods & seals
Last summer I tried both SeaView and ScanStrut radar mounts, and was impressed with both. I also got the sense that these are two able companies in healthy competition. No surprise then that SeaView has just introduced electronics pods not unlike the ScanPod (originally called the DeckPod) that I also tested last season. That big ScanStrut housing held up pretty well to the weight of a Raymarine C140 though it did jiggle a bit in rough going and I did have to adjust the clamp once. SeaView’s design, above, looks to have two clamps and maybe more bearing surface, and I’ll be curious to get a feel for its range of motion and rigidity when clamped. Maybe in Miami? Meanwhile, ScanStrut has moved into cable deck seals…
New from FLIR, more choices
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 320×240 thermal cam with the same excellent bullet casing and Ethernet controller(s) that I tested as the M-626L last fall, with dual payload 640×480 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…
