Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Navigation

Gizmo 2014, glass bridge shakedown cruising #1 7

Network & control / Navigation / What's on board... / Electrical & Engines / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Gizmo 2014, glass bridge shakedown cruising #1

Gizmo_2014_fly_bridge_cPanbo.jpgRedoing almost all of Gizmo’s electronics has taken longer than I would have guessed last fall, when it seemed like a good idea to rip everything off the boat. And sadly I’m not done yet. But the hoped-for glass bridge theme is revealing itself and I like it a lot. But then again new equipment and even just re-installed old gear also means fresh opportunities for things not to work together correctly. In this entry I’ll go over much of Gizmo’s test setup for the next year and a half — though by design there’s room for more — and also note a couple of features that have worked well and not so well during recent shakedown cruises…

Raymarine 2014: science, cadence & “IReverywhere!” 21

Navigation / The future / The Trade

Raymarine 2014: science, cadence & “IReverywhere!”

Raymarine_freeze_test_courtesy_Raymarine.jpgThis frozen aSeries MFD has almost finished a two-day low temperature test, but that’s only the beginning of its suffering. Next it will run another two days in a high temperature cabinet with 85% relative humidity, and there’s still 19 more days of torture to Raymarine’s ERT (Early Reliability Test) Qualification Process. The quality of the testing tools and seriousness with which they’re used was as impressive as the Raymariner on-the-water lab, and I’m publishing more photos below because it’s reassuring to see what proper modern marine electronics have to go through before reaching our boats. But I’ll also attempt to describe the product innovation processes in play at Raymarine’s R&D center, which seemed equally impressive though much harder to photograph or quantify…

Lenovo Windows tablet, new MFD accessory or primary plotter? 20

Wireless & Apps / Navigation

Lenovo Windows tablet, new MFD accessory or primary plotter?

Digital_Yacht_SmarterTrack_on_Lenovo_MiiX_2_aPanbo.jpgI first heard of the Lenovo MiiX 2 when Digital Yacht dubbed it a “best buy for boaters”; besides a low price of about $220, the 8-inch tablet is purportedly bright, fast, and able to run regular Windows navigation programs like DY’s own SmarterTrack. While an internal GPS enables standalone navigation, the DY team mainly envisions the tablet as a second station using NMEA 0183 or 2000 boat data (like the AIS seen above) provided over WiFi by one of its many black box hardware options. But then a look at the MiiX 2 on Amazon revealed a sailing reviewer who’s very ethusiastic about this tablet as his primary nav device, running free OpenCPN software…

New Raymarine a9, a12 & gS19 — aboard the mighty Raymariner 9

Fishing & Sonar / Navigation / What's on board... / The Trade

New Raymarine a9, a12 & gS19 — aboard the mighty Raymariner

Raymarine_a9_gS19_a12_aPanbo.jpgRaymarine recently announced three new multifunction displays, extending the multitouch aSeries to 9- and 12-inch screen sizes, and the glass bridge gS Series to 19 inches (the proportions of my collage are approximate). Given four additional a9 and a12 models with digital sounder or Chirp DownVision built in and the fact that all these new MFDs can network with all the aSeries, cSeries (non touch), eSeries (hybrid touch), and gS models already available, is any other manufacturer offering so much choice? They all run the same software — now up to Lighthouse II, release 10 — so you may already be familiar with most of the features, but the new MFDs do have a few new hardware highlights, some of which I got to see in action aboard Raymarine’s remarkable testing vessel…

Garmin GNX 20/21 instrument displays, monochrome mashups 19

Navigation / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Garmin GNX 20/21 instrument displays, monochrome mashups

Garmin GNX 20 and GNX 21 instrument displays aPanbo.jpgThe press release for the new Garmin instruments doesn’t mention it — and I didn’t notice it at first myself — but can you see what’s quite unusual about these monochrome displays? The GNX 20 at left and its inverted GNX 21 sibling have LCD screens that are partly segmented and partly dot matrix. I didn’t even know that was possible, but I think it makes sense in terms of maximum power efficiency without completely surrendering to the readability limitations of large segments…

Si-Tex T-760 Series radar, other ways of integration 5

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps / Navigation

Si-Tex T-760 Series radar, other ways of integration

Si-Tex_T-760_standalone_radar_w domes_aPanbo.jpgThere’s more to the new Si-Tex T-760 Series radar than you’ll currently find on that product page. Those multi-speed radomes are unlike anything Si-Tex has offered before and contain digital processing that will eventually put 16-level true color target imagery on that 800 x 480 pixel touch screen (with a software update). Plus the case is carved from solid aluminum and can be easily flush mounted. At a suggested retail of about $2,100 with the 18-inch radome and an impressive set of radar features, the T-760 looks like an interesting alternative for boaters who don’t want all their electronic navigation tools on a multifunction display. It might also work for those early adopters who can’t get radar on the tablets they want to use for primary navigation…

More Ray LightHouse II goodies: Sounder Select, GPX, DSC, PDF & Fusion-Link 18

Fishing & Sonar / Navigation / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

More Ray LightHouse II goodies: Sounder Select, GPX, DSC, PDF & Fusion-Link

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_demo_mov_sonar_select2_cPanbo.jpg

One of many features in Raymarine’s latest software update (besides the just-discussed LightHouse charts) is support for multiple sonar sources. While I didn’t have the hardware or even the working vessel to test this, it’s neat that the demo video I screenshot above is built right into the LightHouse II update (and actually more detailed than the one currently on YouTube). But who needs multiple sonar sources? I know that some readers may perceive it as feature glut, but not I, and I’m not even much of a fisherman…

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness 11

Navigation / Charts

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_chart_choices_cPanbo.jpg

A demo look at the new LightHouse Charts got me excited last fall and I feel more so now that I’ve cruised around with them. U.S. boaters who own Raymarine a-, c-, e-, or gS-Series multifunction displays will find that both types of reprocessed free NOAA charts install fairly easily, look good, and zoom/pan quickly. And though no LightHouse charts for waters beyond the U.S. have been announced, Raymarine clearly has the ability to produce them or permit third party cartographers like NV-Chart to do it themselves. Finally, Raymarine’s U.S. plotter models should hopefully cost a little less with free charts and Navionics has perhaps been motivated to up its game. (Whatever the motivation, significant new Navionics features are right around the corner.)

eLoran is back, thanks to Kim Jong-un? 24

Navigation / Safety & SAR / The future

eLoran is back, thanks to Kim Jong-un?

Port_Clarence_LORAN_tower_dies.JPG

When this photo went up on Panbo in early 2010, the prospect of an eLoran system to back up GPS in the USA seemed worse than dead. As the Coast Guard dismantled the old Loran C infrastructure, it would obviously get more expensive to resuscitate the eLoran concept. Well, by golly, the rebirth of eLoran USA is happening anyway! I learned about this good news in a fairly startling way earlier this month, and I’d like to share it with you…

Miami 2014, glass bridge everywhere 11

Wireless & Apps / Navigation / Electrical & Engines

Miami 2014, glass bridge everywhere

Mercury_Simrad_glass_bridge_cPanbo.JPGThe Garmin and Volvo Penta Glass Cockpit won a lot of awards and shook up the competitors. I think it’s why Raymarine rolled out its nifty-seeming ECI-100 so quickly and I suspect it motivated Mercury Marine to put together the clean “glass dash” above. The Simrad NSO evo2 driving those two MO19-T monitors is not only doing the boat’s CZone switching — even able to activate the four outboards — but its Mercury Vessel View app seemed a terrific interface to all those engines…