Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Yearly Archive: 2014

Garmin GNX 20/21 instrument displays, monochrome mashups 19

Navigation / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Garmin GNX 20/21 instrument displays, monochrome mashups

Garmin GNX 20 and GNX 21 instrument displays aPanbo.jpgThe press release for the new Garmin instruments doesn’t mention it — and I didn’t notice it at first myself — but can you see what’s quite unusual about these monochrome displays? The GNX 20 at left and its inverted GNX 21 sibling have LCD screens that are partly segmented and partly dot matrix. I didn’t even know that was possible, but I think it makes sense in terms of maximum power efficiency without completely surrendering to the readability limitations of large segments…

WaveTrax iThing app, more smart boat logging to the cloud 14

Wireless & Apps

WaveTrax iThing app, more smart boat logging to the cloud

WaveTrax_log_history_cPanbo.jpgI wish that track was on the water, but testing WaveTrax auto boat logging over the road is impressive nonetheless. Running on my iPad mini, the app not only collects a track point every minute but automatically creates log entries marking my Lat/Long, COG, and SOG on the hour (and at user selectable distances). It’s fairly easy to add notes, captioned photos, engine/fuel status, and weather observations as desired, and when a trip is done, I even get to touch scribble a signature. But that’s hardly half of it… 

Shaft Razor long test, with a look at the competition 17

How-to / Good Gear (non electronic)

Shaft Razor long test, with a look at the competition

Shaft_Razor_line_cutter_installed_on_Gizmo_cPanbo.jpgThere are still patches of icey snow left from a memorable March in Maine, but I enjoyed a recent afternoon wandering around the boatyard checking out shaft cutters. Pictured above is the Shaft Razor that’s been protecting Gizmo from line wraps since the spring of 2010. Like my stainless rudder it picked up a lot of barnacles last fall, but that double set of super-sharp serrated teeth were still quite effective. The Shaft Razor is also a good value that has required zero maintenance, and while I saw some interesting competition around the yard, I wouldn’t trade…

Afterguard heads-up display, the Recon Jet goes sailboat racing 9

Wireless & Apps / Gadgets / The future

Afterguard heads-up display, the Recon Jet goes sailboat racing

Afterguard_HUD_in_action_aPanbo.jpgThe goal is to direct your focus wherever it’s needed on or beyond the boat while still having critical data in sight.  Brand spanking new today is the Afterguard heads-up display (HUD) for racing sailors. Yes, recent America’s Cup skippers apparently used HUD sunglasses, though you’re a better researcher than I if you can find detail about how they worked and what data they provided. Afterguard intends to bring this technology down at least a few levels, and that means we get a better look at what it can do. This sort of product is more than a little out of my wheelhouse, so to speak, but it looks like this new company did its homework and made some smart decisions…

Vesper XB-8000 test, much more than a Class B AIS transponder 46

Wireless & Apps / AIS / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Vesper XB-8000 test, much more than a Class B AIS transponder

XB-8000-3-in-one-800.jpgI’ve had a Vesper XB-8000 installed in the lab for the last month, and am confident that it will do well in a long test on board Gizmo beginning in May. I will miss some features of the Vesper Vision I tested last season, but having the blue box installed behind the scenes will help me test the glass bridge concept (one MFD brand, many screens), and at $799 I think the XB-8000 is a multifunction value that could work on a wide variety of vessels. The recent testing also revealed some new features that apply to both the XB and the Vision as Vesper continues to expand on the concepts expressed in the 3-in-1 diagram above…

Lowrance Elite 5/7 cheap CHIRP, the sonar wars rage on 6

Fishing & Sonar / The Trade

Lowrance Elite 5/7 cheap CHIRP, the sonar wars rage on

Lowrance_Elite-5_CHIRP.jpgLowrance just launched Elite-5 and -7 CHIRP fishfinders and plotter combos today, but they showed off working prototypes during the Navico writer’s event I attended in January. What seemed to particularly excite the product managers was the Elite’s new ability “to produce low, medium and high CHIRP sonar ranges and display two user-selected ranges simultaneously” using just an “affordable” HDI Skimmer transducer. Apparently they didn’t realize that this tranducer could usefully CHIRP until they tried it, and now they think they have a edge in the sonar battle that’s taking place both on the water and in law offices…

Sonos WiFi HiFi tested: excellent at home, maybe for boat 34

Wireless & Apps / Entertainment

Sonos WiFi HiFi tested: excellent at home, maybe for boat

Sonos_Play_1_test_cPanbo.jpgI knew little about Sonos wireless hifi a month ago. While the ads suggested an elegant Apple-like design, I had the impression it also came with Apple-like premium prices and was certainly not suitable for boats. But now that I’ve lived for a month with the relatively new Play:1 seen above, I may have been wrong on both counts!  Many reviewers have already praised the little speaker/amp’s hardware and audio quality compared to similar wireless speakers. I want to detail the superb Sonos audio access and control software that you can tap into with just one $199 Play:1(though adding more components will be a huge temptation) and also discuss how Sonos can make sense afloat.

Si-Tex T-760 Series radar, other ways of integration 5

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps / Navigation

Si-Tex T-760 Series radar, other ways of integration

Si-Tex_T-760_standalone_radar_w domes_aPanbo.jpgThere’s more to the new Si-Tex T-760 Series radar than you’ll currently find on that product page. Those multi-speed radomes are unlike anything Si-Tex has offered before and contain digital processing that will eventually put 16-level true color target imagery on that 800 x 480 pixel touch screen (with a software update). Plus the case is carved from solid aluminum and can be easily flush mounted. At a suggested retail of about $2,100 with the 18-inch radome and an impressive set of radar features, the T-760 looks like an interesting alternative for boaters who don’t want all their electronic navigation tools on a multifunction display. It might also work for those early adopters who can’t get radar on the tablets they want to use for primary navigation…

More Ray LightHouse II goodies: Sounder Select, GPX, DSC, PDF & Fusion-Link 18

Fishing & Sonar / Navigation / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

More Ray LightHouse II goodies: Sounder Select, GPX, DSC, PDF & Fusion-Link

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_demo_mov_sonar_select2_cPanbo.jpg

One of many features in Raymarine’s latest software update (besides the just-discussed LightHouse charts) is support for multiple sonar sources. While I didn’t have the hardware or even the working vessel to test this, it’s neat that the demo video I screenshot above is built right into the LightHouse II update (and actually more detailed than the one currently on YouTube). But who needs multiple sonar sources? I know that some readers may perceive it as feature glut, but not I, and I’m not even much of a fisherman…

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness 11

Navigation / Charts

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_chart_choices_cPanbo.jpg

A demo look at the new LightHouse Charts got me excited last fall and I feel more so now that I’ve cruised around with them. U.S. boaters who own Raymarine a-, c-, e-, or gS-Series multifunction displays will find that both types of reprocessed free NOAA charts install fairly easily, look good, and zoom/pan quickly. And though no LightHouse charts for waters beyond the U.S. have been announced, Raymarine clearly has the ability to produce them or permit third party cartographers like NV-Chart to do it themselves. Finally, Raymarine’s U.S. plotter models should hopefully cost a little less with free charts and Navionics has perhaps been motivated to up its game. (Whatever the motivation, significant new Navionics features are right around the corner.)