The Marine Technology Hub
The USCG recently issued a Safety Alert about how LED lighting near VHF antennas can cause poor reception on attached radios, which of course includes AIS and DSC reception along with regular marine VHF audio channels. I’m surprised because I remember such problems coming up and being solved a decade ago, which was very early in the evolution of LED lighting…but…
What the heck? An AIS transceiver with a decent antenna up reasonably high can see other AIS transceivers fairly far away, but not 3,508 nautical miles! What’s actually illustrated here was a Standard Horizon GX6000 mistranslating AIS target positions into NMEA 2000, as strongly suggested by the photo below. But as bad as that glitch was, there’s already a firmware fix and the way the update operation works has further benefits.
Have Another Day’s cruising season began in earnest about a month ago and with it came the need for a new planning and underway app. As you may know from my ActiveCaptain Community app...
Aha! The tar-smeared GPS antenna in the bow of the mighty 115-foot replica Viking ship Draken was not a surprise. Live maritime historical research requires modern aids by regulation and common sense. And, holy Leif Erikson, what…
A US versus EU trade war cartoon courtesy of the China Daily seems like a fit illustration of the Navico “2018 Price adjustment warning” recently sent out to dealers (one of whom shared it with...
The sad looking picture above is the back of Have Another Day’s 240v AC panel. Though it doesn’t look good here, it was scarier looking when I first opened the panel the dull grey stud...
Yesterday was tough for Rhode Island independent gubernatorial candidate Joe Trillo. To me it already seemed like a poor idea to use his 65-foot yacht to campaign along the state’s summer beaches, especially with the huge banners and his “very, very big sound equipment” playing patriotic music. But then came the navigation issues…
B&G just announced the WS300 range “of wireless and wired wind sensors designed for cruising and club racing sailors” and the first two models seem like smart designs at reasonable prices. It’s also interesting exactly how both types deliver NMEA 2000 wind information to a boat without having to run an N2K backbone up its mast…
I’m an information junkie; if some information is good, more is better. So, when traveling in unfamiliar waters I would like to know as much as possible. This data habit finds me with multiple plotters and a couple of iPad Minis at the helm when I’m underway. Sometimes my quest for information finds me refrigerating iPads.
Several years ago I noticed that Weems & Plath had introduced a line of binoculars that seemed to offer good specifications at reasonable costs. But it took me until last fall’s Annapolis Show discount to take the plunge, and then it took some customization work to get where I hoped to. It’s an interesting story, I think, but to tell it I’ll have to reveal two more personal idiosyncracies…
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