The Marine Electronics Hub
Some 75 boats in tomorrow’s 97th running of the Mackinac race will be using a new FlagShip transponder supposedly built to very high standards. It’s quite compact (empty Bass Ale bottle for size reference only), operates on...
I’ve never much liked the practice of inserting insulators in a sailboat’s backstay to create an SSB antenna; I want my backstays in one piece, thank you. Thus the Gam/McKim Split Lead Single Side Band Antenna looks like a...
An on screen personality I am not, a fact I was reminded of yesterday when circumstances led me to some videos I did for PMY almost two years ago. I did try to be informative...
Nobeltec just announced an InSight Sounder option for its VNS and Admiral charting+++ programs. The company can now supply the soft– and hardware for plotting, radar, AIS, and fishfinding, including a heading sensor and even...
Yeeeeeha! The basic V-24 is a 26’, 360 Hp, 70 knot racer designed a few years ago by Ocke Mannerfelt, and said to be relatively ‘safe’ and easy to drive. Panbo reader Tom W. has a custom version sporting 650...
One problem with putting together a high power marine WiFi system is the need to use finger-thick low-loss LMR 400 coax—the shorter the better—between the high-gain antenna and the radio. The stuff is hard to run and particularly ungainly...
Alrighty, then, it’s Uniden Day. While getting links for the earlier entry, I spotted this new Bluetooth cordless phone system that just might be terrific for bigger yachts. The key feature is connectivity between...
I actually think that the most important innovations in marine networking are happening over wires — Ethernet and NMEA 2000 wires — but some of the wireless happenings certainly are, er, sexy. I tested Uniden’s first...
SSB SailMail, Sat C, GSM phones using GPRS data, Iridium, marina WiFi, Internet Cafes (“Curses to French keyboards!”), online banking, malicious spyware — damn, some long range cruisers are becoming IT professionals. Yesterday, SetSail.com put up a series of...
Yesterday KVH announced that ISDN (by-the-minute data) service for its big Fleet 77 Inmarsat communications systems is going from 64 to 128 kilobits per second. And hence “with KVH’s exclusive Velocity™ Acceleration software, broadband data...
