Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Communications

Icom M424G & 324G VHF with GPS, and DSC embarrassment 24

Communications

Icom M424G & 324G VHF with GPS, and DSC embarrassment

ICOM_IC-M423G_GPS_VHF_aPanbo.jpgI’m visiting Gizmo in less chilly North Carolina for a week (before TrawlerFest) and was reminded that just before leaving in November, I experienced the first DSC Urgency message I’d ever seen. My reaction was slightly embarassing but the U.S. Coast Guard response was impressive, as will be detailed below. For now let’s just say that DSC is a potentially excellent but underused safety tool and thus it’s good news that Icom has upgraded two of its fixed VHF radio models to include internal GPS sensors so they will be ready to make DSC distress calls almost the moment power and antenna are attached. At the London Boat Show last week Icom UK introduced the IC-M423G above, which features a “striking new white backlight LCD” as does the M424G U.S. version…

LinkWav, Inmarsat FB finally makes sense for intermittent users 9

Communications

LinkWav, Inmarsat FB finally makes sense for intermittent users

LinkWav_website_home_page_aPanbo.jpgHo hum, just another sat coms service provider? No way! I think that LinkWav has pulled off something quite special in the daunting world of expensive marine satellite voice minutes and data megabytes. The company figured out how to offer a simple Inmarsat FleetBroadband service plan with decent rates and nearly realtime cost/budget monitoring, but without an oppressive contract. In fact, LinkWav is especially designed for the ocean racers, cruisers and small commercial operators who only need satellite communications now and then, sometimes with many months in between. The cherry on top is the high quality of the LinkWav team…

Standard Horizon HX870, handheld VHF/GPS/DSC powerhouse 36

Handheld / Communications / Safety & SAR

Standard Horizon HX870, handheld VHF/GPS/DSC powerhouse

Standard_Horizon_HX870_vs_HS851_cPanbo.jpg

I was impressed with Standard Horizon’s original HX850 and I’ve been happily using the slightly upgraded HX851 model above for several years. It’s a fine handheld 6 Watt VHF (if you don’t mind the size) plus it’s always ready to place a DSC distress call and/or navigate a life raft (or tender or kayak or…). But, wow, look what they did with the new HX870 model: The screen is at least twice as large, the interface seems usefully updated with soft keys and icons, the battery is substantially larger, and more…

Garmin 2015: glass bridge 7600 series, Reactor autopilot, xHD2 radar & more 9

Navigation / Communications

Garmin 2015: glass bridge 7600 series, Reactor autopilot, xHD2 radar & more

Garmin_Marine_2015_web_site_cPanbo.jpg

Garmin introduced lots of new products in Fort Lauderdale yesterday along with the promise that all of them will be shipping by mid-February. There’s even a special Marine 2015 website, while this Garmin blog entry offers a succinct overview of the whole lineup. At the press conference the line that seemed to neatly frame Garmin Marine 2015 was “not necessarily ground breaking, but easier to select, easier to install, and easier to use.” I noticed evidence of all that along with a few features that do indeed seem unique and valuable…

Antenna masts: Edson Vision & more 7

Cabin & deck gear / Communications

Antenna masts: Edson Vision & more

Gizmo_10-2014_antenna_farm_cPanbo.jpg

So far, so good. Finishing up Gizmo’s antenna mast was the last minute task before heading south, but nothing fell on our heads during the often lively passage to the Cape Cod Canal and around into Long Island Sound. Most of the new installs up there worked too, though we experienced a couple of very odd MFD issues that I’ll write up once I understand them better. For the time being I’ll just repeat a venerable adage: Do not rely on any one source of navigation information. Now let’s discuss the Edson Vision and custom mounting hardware I used for the antenna farm…

Cruising Solutions headsets, testing the Bluetooth update 8

Wireless & Apps / Communications

Cruising Solutions headsets, testing the Bluetooth update

Apparently the folks at Cruising Solutions have not forgotten that I once characterized their still popular Mariner 500 intecom headsets as “making a boater look unfashionably similar to a Soviet tank driver” and hence asked me to test their latest solution to the problem of verbal communications when captain and crew are in different areas of a boat. They are called “My Team Talks” Bluetooth headsets and they’re much more than modern looking intercoms. “Bring state-of-the-art multiplex communication technology to your boat” is not an overstatement…

Siren Marine cellular boat monitoring long test, reliable & powerful 9

Communications / Safety & SAR

Siren Marine cellular boat monitoring long test, reliable & powerful

Siren_Marine_TRANSGRES_warning_text_cPanbo.jpg

Boat theft is very rare in Maine, but on a recent Saturday night someone apparently “borrowed” a big twin outboard off a local dock for a “joy ride” during which something was hit hard enough to hole the topsides, and then they put the boat back on the dock and vanished! To my knowledge the mystery remains unsolved, but it sure jogged my memory about the Set feature on the Siren Marine cellular monitoring system I’ve been testing for over two years. The partial phone screen above shows what happened when Gizmo moved more than about 15 meters several days after I texted the “SET” command to the Siren. First I was notified that she’d TRANSGRESsed the geofence set up by the SET command and then the Siren started texting me every five minutes with GAT (Geofence Automatic Time-based) reports that included course, speed and a lat/long link to Google Maps. I could have guided the Maine Marine Patrol to the transgressor pretty quickly, if the “villain” hadn’t been myself…

Simrad RS35 VHF & HS35 wireless handset, testing pretty well 66

Communications / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Simrad RS35 VHF & HS35 wireless handset, testing pretty well

Simrad_RS35_testing_GPS_source_cPanb_o.jpgIt’s taken a while but I am becoming quite fond of the Simrad RS35 VHF radio and HS35 wireless handset accessory. Panbo first covered the RS35’s nice combination of full Class D VHF DSC capabilities, NMEA 2000 interface and built-in AIS receiver in late 2012. But when I received a test unit last summer, it was quickly apparent that the radio had trouble interfacing with many N2K GPS sources (as you can read about in the comments to that 2012 entry). I was slow to return the radio for the software fix but now it’s installed at Gizmo’s lower helm and has no problem with the three GPS sources shown above and a lot more I threw at it. I’ve also seen it output AIS info over NMEA 2000 to every MFD currently on Gizmo (though there is a glitch if you also have a transponder, explained below). And while some intertesting radios have come to market in the last year, the RS35 at about $300 to $350 seems the VHF/AIS/N2K value leader (except for its sibling Lowrance Link-8 if you don’t care about the wireless handset option)…

Inmarsat iSatPhone 2, a solid satphone but here come Globalstar Sat-Fi & Iridium GO 25

Communications / Safety & SAR

Inmarsat iSatPhone 2, a solid satphone but here come Globalstar Sat-Fi & Iridium GO

Inmarsat_iSatPhone_2_aPanbo.jpgA brief test of the new Inmarsat IsatPhone 2 showed it to be quite a good satellite phone. Compared to the original IsatPhone Pro I tested in 2010, the new phone locks onto both GPS and Inmarsat satellites noticably faster and the voice calls seem to sound better. I also found the screen quite readable in most conditions including direct sun, and the user interface struck me as fast and easy to get the hang of. However, if you sense some “buts” coming, you are correct. At nearly $1,000 street price, this phone is not the “game changer” promised in 2010. Also long gone are the $200 prepaid SIM cards good for 250 minutes and two years mentioned in my 2010 review; Inmarsat phone service is pretty costly these days. Perhaps more important, we are just entering an era when we can supposedly have all the services of a satphone without actually having to own another darn phone, and possibly at a lower overall cost…