Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Navigation

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Editors' Blog / Navigation / Charts / The future

“Practical Navigators” — when olde Salem MA met the paper(chart)less future

The Navigator of the United States Navy does not mess around. Addressing a bow-tie-speckled crowd of New England yachtsmen and nautical history buffs, Rear Admiral Richard West passionately described the “technological explosion” that is blowing apart the grand traditions of marine navigation, and his commitment to an all-digital future. When asked the inevitable question about paper charts, he grinned mischievously and said, “We’re going to throw them all overboard!” 

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Press Releases / Fishing & Sonar / Navigation

SI-TEX unveils new Orion 10 chartplotter/ sounder system

SI-TEX Marine Electronics has introduced an all-new chartplotter/ Echosounder system to its robust product line-up for 2023. This affordable new unit — the SI-TEX Orion 10 — is available immediately in both chartplotter and chartplotter/sounder combination (Orion 10 CF), to meet the needs of a wide range of vessels from cruising powerboats to saltwater fishing machines. Its powerful sounder output (600W or 1.5kW depending on transducer) and superior deep-water fish detection make the Orion 10 an excellent choice for commercial fishing applications, as well…

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Sailing & Racing / Wireless & Apps / Navigation / Charts / AIS / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Orca offers smart navigation with your tablet or theirs

Orca makes some pretty heady claims about their CoPilot navigation app and hardware. Their home page is dominated by the tagline, “The ultimate navigation experience” and promises “Better boating with Orca.” Those are bold statements, but Orca’s goals are indeed ambitious. Orca aims to deliver a smarter, more automated navigation experience by leveraging both their own and off-the-shelf hardware. So, how far along the path to delivering the ultimate navigation experience has Orca progressed so far? Let’s take a look.

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Press Releases / Fishing & Sonar / Navigation

Garmin unveils the GMR xHD3 series open-array radars

Garmin, the world’s most innovative and recognized marine electronics manufacturer, today announced the GMR xHD3 series open-array radars that combine high-definition imaging with the latest platform technology to deliver new levels of confidence, clarity and performance to cruisers and anglers alike. A first for Garmin magnetron radar, the xHD3 series incorporates scan averaging that helps filter out sea clutter and interference on the display to provide mariners with enhanced consistent targets…

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Editors' Blog / Wireless & Apps / Navigation / What's on board...

Are tablets ready to replace chart plotters?

Apple’s Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in April 2010. At the time, I was working in financial services technology. The day it was introduced, I ordered a half dozen of them so we could try them out and see what this new-fangled computer without a keyboard might do well. That original iPad, with 256 megabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of storage, and a tiny app store was pretty limited. But, we’ve come a long way in the last 13 years and tablets can do an awful lot. But, are they a replacement for dedicated navigation electronics? Let’s take a look at the capabilities they offer and some of the remaining limitations.

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Navigation / Safety & SAR

Solid state radomes compared, part 3 – Furuno checks in

This article is supposed to be a thorough comparison of how Furuno’s DRS2DNXT compared to the other radars I’ve tested. Unfortunately, testing multiple radars on a 22-foot boat is challenging. The most recent challenge included snapping a freshly made mount before I was able to get offshore with the setup. The bad news is, I wasn’t able to complete all my testing scenarios. The good news is, I still have the radar unit and I’m working on more permanent and robust mounting options. But for now, here’s what I’ve learned.

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Wireless & Apps / Navigation / Safety & SAR

SIONYX Nightwave, strong low light performance

SIONYX’s Nightwave camera is the company’s first fixed mount, marine, night vision camera. It builds on the strong low-light performance of the company’s Aurora handheld spotting scopes in a more traditional marine form factor. I’ve had the camera out on some inky dark nights and been pleased with the performance.

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Editors' Blog / Sailing & Racing / Network & control / Navigation

MIBS 2023 – B&G Zeus S

Last year at the Miami show, B&G’s Navico sister company, Simrad, was showing off NSX, the first MFD running Navico’s new Neon operating system. This year it’s B&G’s turn to show their Neon-based Zeus S. Neon on the Zeus S comes with a plethora of sailing-specific features and at least one new safety feature I’ve never seen on a recreational product.

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Editors' Blog / Navigation / Safety & SAR

Panbo(at) gets a Furuno DRS2DNXT, cue the comparisons

Since I started paying attention to marine electronics , I’ve heard that Furuno radars are the class of the industry. My own experiences on boats have shown that rumor to be accurate. So, I was awfully disappointed when I couldn’t get my hands on an eval unit when I did my radar comparisons (part II here). I have some good news! Furuno was able to provide a unit for comparison and I’ve had (just a little) bit of time on the water with it.