Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Yearly Archive: 2010

SeaView & ScanStrut redux, pods & seals 2

Cabin & deck gear

SeaView & ScanStrut redux, pods & seals

Seaview_Pod.JPG

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 1

Navigation / Safety & SAR

New from FLIR, more choices

FLIR_M636_thermal_in_rain_cPanbo.JPG

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…

Iridium 9602 & Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro, oh boy! 8

Communications

Iridium 9602 & Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro, oh boy!

Iridium_9602_with_Card.JPG

The smaller, cheaper Iridium short-burst data (SBD) modem I heard about at Fort Lauderdale is now official and, wow, doesn’t it look able to “disappear into as many marine devices as possible!” It even has a GPS input/output ports so that it and the modem can easily share a dual-mode antenna.  Hardware and service costs aren’t specified but Iridium is claiming that the 9602 will have “the highest value in the industry.”  I, for one, can’t wait to see devices like the Spot Messenger that are global and bi-directional, and what the MFD and marine security/tracking developers might do with the 9602.  And I’m glad for Iridium that it’s got this and OpenPort going on, because it sure looks like Inmarsat is about to attack its dominance in the satellite phone department…

EasyBailer, a good idea done well 17

Cabin & deck gear

EasyBailer, a good idea done well

EasyBailer cPanbo.JPG

Weird world that it is, I first learned of EasyBailer via Twitter, even though the “factory” is just down the coast.  Last week I stopped in and met “CEO” John Bianchi in his shop full of small boats, including an impressive plank-on-frame Rangeley Guideboat he build himself.  Thus I wasn’t surprised to see how neatly put together his solar-powered dinghy pump is (click above for detail).  And I consider myself somewhat expert about this as I tried to assemble a similar bailer myself with poor results…

ActiveCaptain 2010, huge things? 7

Navigation / PC & peripheral

ActiveCaptain 2010, huge things?

ActiveCaptain_X_Vero_Beach_cPanbo.JPG

My longtime admiration for Jeff and Karen Siegel, and their creation ActiveCaptain, has started to lean dangerously toward jealousy!  They’ve spend many months cruising from Maine to Florida and judging from their blog and the latest AC newsletter, they’ve not only been having fun but also writing code and making deals the whole the way.  Version “X” of the interactive cruising guide is really taking shape, and other developments coming soon do indeed sound “huge”…

America’s Cup 32, monitoring the madness 17

Zany

America’s Cup 32, monitoring the madness

Alinghi_weather_microlight.JPG

Good grief!  It was plain as day that this America’s Cup was going to be all about technology (and bad mojo), but a wind-seeking microlight equipped at minimum with anemometer, satellite compass, and radar?  I can’t find any info about the Alinghi Airforce on the team’s own site, but Sailing Anarchy has the tape, and some trenchant commentary.  If any of you can find out more on that electronics set up, or — even better — what’s on the boats, please let us know.  Meanwhile, I’m lining up the resources I’ll use to monitor this madness in progress…

Standalone AIS — new DY, Vesper, & Icom 2

AIS

Standalone AIS — new DY, Vesper, & Icom

Digital_Yacht_SmarterChart_AIS_and_Marine_Pod-lr.JPG

As noted recently Digital Yacht is on a new product roll.  To my knowledge this SmarterChart SC500A is the first new C-Map plotter in quite a while, and the first plotter to have a built-in AIS receiver period .  At $799 list, it might be just the thing for open helms on some smaller boats, for which DY also has a new line of helm pods (though they don’t seem to be online yet).  But some bigger boats might want one of these to serve mainly as an AIS target plotter (it has NMEA 0183 output too), and there are a couple of other interesting developements in that department… 

Avia Design, a new N2K player 10

NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Avia Design, a new N2K player

Avia_OnBoard_Polar_Screen.GIF

I’ve recently been beta testing a suite of software products from a marine electronics newcomer called Avia Design, and I’m tentatively enthusiastic.  They are the first products I know of that are fully leveraged off the NMEA 2000 Third Party Gateway (TPG) discussed yesterday, and therefore a sign of many things to come (I think).  And they’re cool, or at least should be when finished.  Check out that real time polar diagram for performance sailors above — I’m not sure there’s ever been one before — and there’s plenty of power boaters too…

Actisense NGT-1 NMEA 2000 gateway, now we’re talking 21

NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Actisense NGT-1 NMEA 2000 gateway, now we’re talking

Actisense_NGT-1.jpg

I’ve got a large NMEA 2000 network set up in the lab now, and it’s giving me a good chance to try out the Actisense NGT-1.  It’s fully NMEA certified now, and selling for $200 at some outlets, but I gather that the Third Party Gateway system (formerly known as the Intelligent Gateway) of which it’s a part is not yet fully detailed.  In other words, we don’t quite know yet how software that works with it will get NMEA approved and what, if any, restrictions there may be on how it’s sold.  For instance, bundling in an NGT-1, or a similar gateway, may required.  But I can tell you this:  Beta versions of TPG software are starting to look powerful…