Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Editors’ Blog

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Editors' Blog / Navigation / Safety & SAR

2022 GPS rollovers: Furuno, Airmar, JRC, and who else?

While I certainly knew that it was not June 8 2002 when I took this photo last Saturday, the Sunrise/Sunset times shown above are also quite wrong, and it’s hard to tell what other calculations get screwed up when a networked device like this Maretron DSM starts receiving a system date that is 1,024 weeks old. Yes, the problem seems like the well-publicized April 1999 GPS week number rollover, except that it just happened a few weeks ago on the attached Airmar PB200, and lots of older gear from Furuno, JRC and probably other brands are experiencing a similarly delayed and under-publicized rollover in 2022…

8

Editors' Blog / Navigation / Safety & SAR

Omnisense Ulysses Micro thermal camera testing underway

manufacturer other than FLIR, but these looked like high-quality cameras competing on performance and features, not just price. It took longer than I would have liked, but I now have an evaluation unit on hand and mounted on Panbo(at). Testing is underway and I’ll have much more to show soon, but the early results are certainly promising.

74

Editors' Blog / AIS / The Trade / Monitoring & Tracking

Garmin Buys Vesper, will the innovation continue?

t that Ben Ellison and I are big fans of Vesper Marine. As a small company out of New Zealand, Vesper has punched above its weight class by delivering numerous innovations. Well before getting involved in the marine electronics industry, I’ve been impressed by Vesper’s ability to deliver easy-to-use products that make boating safer and more relaxed. Vesper’s anchor alarm functionality (first covered on Panbo over a decade ago!) remains more capable than any MFD anchor alarm I’ve seen. So, it was a big surprise this morning to see that Garmin has bought Vesper. What will this mean for the scrappy little company and its track record of innovating?

12

LiFePO4 / Editors' Blog / What's on board... / Electrical & Engines / The Trade

DIY LiFePO4 battery goes to work

ation for it. Once I finished the battery I knew I wanted to test it in a real-world scenario, but also one where troubles wouldn’t knock the house system of my boats or RV offline. Well, I think I’ve found the perfect place to get that real-world usage testing while also being able to tolerate trouble.

3

Editors' Blog / Sailing & Racing / Electrical & Engines / Green Boating

Hydrogen-fueled electric foiling chase boats at America’s Cup 37?

The next America’s Cup will be held in 2024 at a location still undecided, but the defender Emirates Team New Zealand and the official challenger INEOS Britannia just announced the Protocol which controls almost every other aspect of the race series. And while there are numerous changes that should make the actual sailing competition even more exciting, it also includes a rather amazing powerboat provision…

3

Editors' Blog / The Trade / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Littelfuse acquires Carling Technologies, Maretron included: Business as usual?

Littelfuse — a large Chicago-based manufacturer of industrial technology — is acquiring Carling Technologies, and that makes me a bit nervous about the future of Carling’s marine brands. Will Octoplex, MPower, and especially all the (great) Maretron electronics on my boat continue to be developed and supported even though Littelfuse currently has only a minor marine market presence?

1

Editors' Blog / The Trade

FLIBS 2021 recap, a smaller show still packs a punch

The 2021 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show was the first major consumer show I’ve attended in nearly two years. Although the 2020 show took place in October of last year, I wasn’t there. I heard reports from colleagues of a dramatically smaller show with empty booths, smaller crowds, and very different energy. This year, the show was a little smaller than the last one I attended in 2019, but definitely felt like FLIBS. Although it was different, I think many of the differences result from the scarcity of available boats and components.

AP News Oct 18, 2021 4

Editors' Blog / Sailing & Racing / When things go wrong...

Drug smuggling, the sailing feats we rarely hear about?

When I got serious about sailing and seamanship fifty years ago, I read all sorts of offshore cruising and racing accounts, particularly interested in the problems that came up and the solutions found. It seemed valuable to learn that, say, a well-found 46-foot ketch could pitchpole stern-over-bow in certain situations and how the crew survived. But eventually I realized that there was a whole niche of especially extreme ocean voyaging that was almost never discussed, except maybe quietly in remote harbors or jail cells…

11

Editors' Blog / Weather / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Monitoring dew point temperature at your helm, why and how

Allan Seymour wants to see the current Dew Point and outside Air Temperatures at the helm of Sally W because fog is often about to shut in when the two temps become similar. And there are at least three marine sensors that claim to deliver dew point over NMEA 2000, two of which Allan owns. But actually getting the value to show on his instrument display turned out to be quite a challenge. I helped with the troubleshooting, and came to better appreciate the value of dew point in the process…

11

Editors' Blog / History / The Trade

Simrad is 75 years old, and doing fine

Simrad is celebrating its 75th anniversary as a marine electronics brand, and that’s a good excuse to look at old photos and reminisce about how far the technologies have evolved. Consider, for instance, the compact shortwave receiver above, nicknamed the “Sweetheart”. Though not actually a marine radio, it’s key to Simrad’s origin story. That’s because founder Willy Simonsen distinguished himself in the Norwegian resistance before starting his company after World War II, escaping to England where 50,000 of his Sweetheart designs were built and airdropped behind enemy lines so that resistance groups in Norway and other occupied nations could keep up with BBC news…