Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Yearly Archive: 2011

NMEA 2000 bridges #2, Jeremy’s experiments 28

NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

NMEA 2000 bridges #2, Jeremy’s experiments

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I think you’re going to be amazed at how many NMEA 2000 sensors and displays Jeremy Anwyl has managed to install on his lovely sloop Tranquilidad, but probably not surprised that they haven’t all played together perfectly.  In fact, when I wrote the first entry on N2K bridges I joked that Jeremy’s soon-to-come guest entry on the subject might be sub-titled “One brave man’s experiment with a CANbus bridge, and the issues that drove him to it!”  The publishing delay is entirely the fault of your easily distracted editor, but the good news is that Tranquiladad did some cruising over the holidays and Jeremy has more testing results he can add to the comments that will no doubt follow his initial bridge experimentations…

My Phonaks; not just aided, augmented! 13

Zany

My Phonaks; not just aided, augmented!

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Yes, I did try to put some “heart” into this photograph of the Phonak Audéo SMART IX hearing aids I’ve been using since early November (often along with that optional Bluetooth accessory).  My only significant symptom was difficulty understanding conversation in noisy places, but when tested it turned out that much of my high frequency hearing was gone.  I don’t know what caused the damage — that crazy Led Zeppelin concert?…the stint as engineer on the Gulf supply boat? — but there’s no denying the new sounds I’m hearing through the Phonaks.  I still delight in everyday noises like the crinkle of paper, and my music collection has come alive.  Plus I’m looking forward to the quiet anchorage sounds I didn’t know I was missing, I think that improved hearing is going to help me catch system problems on Gizmo earlier, and I know I’m going to be able to manage cell calls underway better.  And it happens that I’m aware of how ineffective hearing aid technology used to be…   

Icom M412, best DSC channel switching control? 11

Communications

Icom M412, best DSC channel switching control?

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The Icom pitch for its new IC-M412 is straight forward — “Compact, Easy to Use and a Great Value” — and probably quite true. You could argue that Standard Horizon’s new GX1600 is even more compact, and its GX1150 even a greater value, but the bigger picture is that the two big VHF manufacturers now have small Class D DSC radios at pretty reasonable prices (though — darn it — neither has yet adopted NMEA 2000 interfacing).  But there are at least two subtleties to the Icom M412 worth noting…

Digital Yacht BOATraNET, something truly different? 14

Wireless & Apps / The future

Digital Yacht BOATraNET, something truly different?

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Interesting!  Digital Yacht’s BOATraNET — just being introduced at the London Boat Show — is a low-amperage 12v Linux server designed expressly to deliver all sorts of NMEA 0183 and/or 2000 boat data, plus centrally stored info and media, via WiFi to whatever assemblage of smart phones, tablets, and PCs are on board your boat.  And you won’t need a special app but rather just a new generation browser running HTML 5.  You can also connect a high power WiFi transceiver to BOATraNET so that all your devices can get online via the boat’s own hot spot when you’re in port.  Can anyone argue with Digital Yacht’s characterization of this concept as “revolutionary”?… 

Garmin’s wireless VHF mic, Simrad’s too 21

Communications

Garmin’s wireless VHF mic, Simrad’s too

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Anyone with a Garmin 200 or 300 series VHF will likely be pleased to learn that they can now add up to three wireless mics with full controls.  Garmin announced the GHS 20 handsets along with the GWH 20 wireless hub needed to run them last week, and the product page suggests they’re nearly ready to ship.  It’s all sort of sneaky — though in a good way — as the wireless mic possibility is not even mentioned in the VHF 200 or 300 literature and manuals.  However, these handsets are not inexpensive…

SPOT Connect(s), the mobile apps way 15

Wireless & Apps / Safety & SAR

SPOT Connect(s), the mobile apps way

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Yes indeed, that is an Android app serving as the extended front end of yet another iteration of the good old SPOT satellite messenger.  It’s called SPOT Connect, and it’s a close relative of the Delorme joint product announced at this time last year.  The SPOT hardware is again an independent, waterproof communicator that can send out a distress message by itself, but now its third internal wireless component — after GPS and Globalstar short burst messenging — is Bluetooth.  Which means that a SPOT app on most any sort of mobile device can be used to send canned “Help” or “Check-in” emails/texts, or to turn on tracking, or — and this was the big new feature on the Delorme PN60W — write a custom 41 character message.  Another Connect difference is that the actual shipping date will apparently come much sooner after the announcement…

Warranties, Raymarine (FLIR) goes to three years 19

The Trade

Warranties, Raymarine (FLIR) goes to three years

Raymarine_3_yr_warranty_collage_by_Panbo.jpg

Nice!  As of New Year’s Day all new Raymarine products are eligible for a free extra year of warranty as long as the owner registers them online (always a good idea anyway).  And that’s not all:  Raymarine has also instituted “Rapid Care” which means that if your product (excepting radar and sat TV antennas) is in its first year of warranty and needs repair, Ray will ship you a “like-new remanufactured” unit within two business days of receiving the broken one.  This strikes me as a smart way for FLIR — which might be called Raymarine’s thermally-obsessed sugar daddy) — to express its longterm commitment to the company and its customers, but does it also mean that Raymarine now has the best warranty program in the business?…

Garmin GMR 604 xHD, hand’s on 10

Navigation

Garmin GMR 604 xHD, hand’s on

Garmin GMR406 Jonesport harbor cPanbo.JPG

So that’s the Garmin GMR 604 xHD open array radar I installed last May painting a crowded harbor on the screen of a GPSMap 7212 in late July.  Gizmo was headed southwest at the time — the GPS heading, or COG, is meaningless because she’s tied up to a float — and so you have to twist your brain a bit to see how well the radar is imaging the details of Jonesport’s Sawyer Cove, and hence that the long straight target at the upper left is the famously uncharted steel and concrete breakwater there.  And I think if you make the comparison you’ll agree that the true color target display really helps to understand what the radar is doing.  Those light blue and green returns at upper left, for instance, are almost certainly some sort of noise created the breakwater’s heft and hardness.  I could have turned the gain down to eliminate that noise, but then I might not have seen the light blue at lower left — which is an emerging mud flat, I think — and similarly difficult targets once I got underway.  True color returns is indeed my favorite feature of the xHD/7212 combination…