The Marine Electronics Hub
The average boater doesn’t need a power analyzer like this, but battery scrooges and testers like me might be interested. This Medusa Research Pro is actually designed for radio control hobbyists but its features and value appealed to my inner geek, and so far I’ve been really pleased with what it can do…
“Gaumy” is great Maine word for something kind of messy or awkward (there are numerous spellings), and it came to mind when I tested the Dry Case above. Its various doodads and fairly large size almost completely suck the elegant simplicity right out of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. However, because you can easily suck the air out of the case, it’s not only exceptionally waterproof, but the screen and even the iPhone camera, still work fine, which is more than can be said for the Otter Case also discussed after the break…
That’s the hyper-green eco-adventure cat Plastiki posing for a press conference in San Francisco last Friday. Sure, the project is somewhat mockable — they’ll be recycling urine as they cross the Pacific, for cripe’s sake — and there are even some who think that Mick Jagger’s daughter will join the already semi-glamorous crew. But I’m sensing that this is the real deal, as did Kimball when he visited (and then Charlie pointed out that there’s a North Atlantic plastic patch too, damn it). Wired’s detail on the innovative construction and a Treehugger interview with de Rothchild also helped hook me. I’m planning to following this adventure, and as you’re about to see, that should be easy…
Talk about a blue marble! Visions of Johanna is now half way from the Galapagos to Easter Island, and very far from home. But Gram Schweikert was able to call my Google Voice mail number from VOJ yesterday, and the recording sounds decent, as you can hear below. He’s going to keep trying the two satcoms system across the Pacific, but he’s already completed the main testing, as you’ll read after the break, and the news is pretty much all good…
In Miami I got a good introduction to OceanLED’s new line of LIET LED down lighting fixtures, and was thoroughly intrigued. LIET (old English for “light” and pronounced the same way) seems to represent a significant technological leap. That LIET6 core above, for instance, is less than five inches in diameter and a half inch thick, but produces what’s claimed to be the equivalent of a 50w Halogen bulb while only using 5.3 watts of power. It even has built-in diagnostics and dimming. And while blindingly bright, it doesn’t get hot to finger touch even though it lacks a discernible heat sink. How did they do it?
Almost 400 marine electronics users have already taken the survey announced here earlier this month, and Marine Technology Analysts (MTA) has done a little preliminary data crunching. Users were asked to name up to three of their favorite sources and, while 152 outlets were named, the top 11 seen above appeared in 60% of the surveys. MTA also tells me that some strong patterns are developing in terms of what users most desire from those sources, not to mention what they want in terms of products. But more data would be great. Please take a 10-15 minute break to fill out the survey today; chances are good that the effort will help the marine electronics industry, Panbo, and ultimately you.
Dan Corcoran: In the fall there were a lot of magazine articles on tools everyone should have on their boat including favorite tools, tools distance cruisers should have, unusual tools, multi purpose tools, and...
What’s it going to take before more boaters realize how thoroughly Fusion is reinventing marine stereo? The new RA-200 introduced in Miami is not only an attractively smaller and less expensive ($170 retail) unit, but it includes neat new features that aren’t even in the higher-end series yet. These guys can’t help themselves!…
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…
This morning I managed to talk my way onto Portland’s new fire boat, City of Portland (IV), just before it headed home from Rockland Marine, and I was glad I did. Apparently the firemen themselves got to choose the electronics and they ended up with an interesting mix. Those are two Garmin GMR HD24 radar domes just forward of, and beneath, that remote-controlled 3,000 gallon-per-minute water cannon. It’s aimed to starboard like that because when its dedicated 525hp diesel pump fires up, it burps a “large dollop” of salt water before going full stream, and the crew are trying to give the domes a chance. Given that the canon can purportedly hole a building at close range, the fire fighters must also have strategy (like rotation stops) to avoid blowing that Furuno satellite compass (upper left) into space…
