Category: Communications

Here’s Bill Boudreau of Cobra Electronics showing off the two new floating 6 watt handheld VHFs the company announced earlier this week.  The higher end model, the MR HH475, includes the Rewind-Say-Again audio recording feature I liked a lot in the original HH425 and the fixed F80.  Plus this handset can also double as a Bluetooth handset for your cell phone, much like Cobra’s dedicated MR F300 Bluetooth speaker mic.  It doesn’t have some of the mic’s features, like a built-in address book, but it does have the PTT/VOX choice and the noise cancellation that tested so well in my lab.  But what if someone hails you on VHF while you’re chatting on your phone?

So now that I have a real yacht, and hope to take her foreign one day, it seemed proper to get an official FCC Ship Station License.  And better sooner than later since it...

Some of us got confused last week when Inmarsat introduced its tiny but fast Fleet Broadband 150 Internet & voice service in Miami.  While Inmarsat boasted about “sub $5,000” terminal hardware, KVH said it...

I’m in a gang now, sort of, and I like it. Above is my Yachting magazine colleague Jason Wood calling me via FB150 sat phone from the Inmarsat demo boat on Biscayne Bay Monday,...

These are big times in the small world of global satellite communications for medium size boats! Yesterday Inmarsat demoed Fleet Broadband 150 hardware and service in Miami (my people were there, and even called...

So Global Satellite USA has announced an interesting Iridium PBX box, but it won’t roll out until June and will cost $4,200 (with an outside antenna and 20 meters of cable)…

Some of you may remember my enthusiasm for the GrandCentral, a free online voice mail, PBX, and one-#-for-life scheme with fantastic potential for cruising boaters (as well as mere mortals).  In that March, 2007, entry I even hoped for/predicted the startup’s purchase by Google, which happened almost immediately.  It remained functional, but very quiet, all these months. (I never did use it as a real contact number, because I like the Maine numbers I have, but did use its fabulous call recording abilities for tasks like testing the Cobra noise cancelling cell mic.)  Well, finally GrandCentral has emerged as Google Voice, with several added features like…

How’s about a module that can seamlessly communicate voice and data all around North America via either cellular or satellite radios, includes WiFi and GPS too, and can fit in a small handset or into a multifunction marine display? That’s what SkyTerra has in development, and…