The demise of Loran-C and eLoran, case closed?
Damn it! This morning the USCG, in classic gov speak, announced the publication of notice of intention to terminate Loran-C. There’s a lot that’s not mentioned in the release, but my sources say that...
Category: Safety & SAR
Furuno & FLIR vs the pirates, IRIS
Pirates beware! The Furuno DRS25A Ultra HD radar and FLIR Voyager II thermal camera shown being installed on the stern of the Maersk Alabama are all about keeping a sharp watch for attackers in small boats. And there’s another pair at the bow, along with dual monitoring stations within the ship, and lots of redundancy built in…
SPOT HUG, multifunction marine messenger
I previewed this on my Ft. Lauderdale Twitter feed (did that thing work for anyone?), and I remain enthusiastic. HUG stands for Hybrid Universal Guardian, which is quite a mouthful, but then again this puppy can do a lot for a boater…
FLIR First Mate, thermal in your hand
A significant product introduction at the NMEA Conference was the FLIR First Mate, a hand held thermal camera that’s truly designed for marine use and will list for a hair under $3,000. Mind you, it does not use light intensification technology, or a near IR illuminator, like most every other marine night vision monocular. This is the real thermal deal, able to see long wave infrared radiation that has nothing to do with visible, or near visible, light. Like the FLIR M-636 I’ve begun testing, it can see in total darkness, and even in broad daylight it often sees in a usefully different way than your eye. For instance, an MOB is going stand out like a light bulb regardless of water or skin color. FLIR being FLIR, they took us all out on San Carlos Bay with a boat load of First Mates and other thermal cams…
FLIR M-Series testing #1, neat dets
I first saw a working FLIR M-626L thermal camera in Miami last winter, and am keen to try it on my own boat in familiar territory. Obviously the shot above was taken from my mooring float before the daylight faded completely, but it does hint strongly at what I’ll get at night. After all, the image seen on the Raymarine C140W above is all about heat, not light. Click on the photo and compare thermal to visible spectrum. (Note that I added the black marks at top to show the slightly-panned camera’s field of view, and that everything is slightly widened because I used the Ray’s widescreen aspect ratio to fill the screen.) See how ‘hot’ humans on the docks and even in the distant head-of-harbor park show up clearly, as does the south-facing brick wall of the library and the similarly heat-holding ledges up on Mt. Battie? When I get a chance to try the FLIR in pitch dark conditions, I hope to see lobster pot buoys — the bane of night running around here — pop out clearly. In the meantime, here are a couple of neat M-Series installation details…
SPOT 2G, and 1G test unit report
SPOT unveiled its second generation hardware a few weeks ago, and it looks good. It’s smaller and lighter, GPS acquisition is purportedly much improved, and the user interface will be a whole lot easier to understand and remember. You’ll find more information and analysis at Doug Ritter’s Equipped.org blog and at Hardcore Outdoor.
MOB systems, AMEC is in
When I first met Alltek Marine Electronics Corp. in late 2007, the team was working on a LifeTag-like MOB system (speaking of Raymarine). Well, now the AMEC MOB Dolphin is apparently ready to go, including FCC approval. The idea of plotting MOBs on an AMEC Camino 201 Class B AIS transponder seems to have gone by the wayside, but a single-hander can set up the system so that his/her connected AMEC AIS will send out an SRM message if the worst happens. I’m not sure how well that will work as Safety Related Messages seem to be a little used part of the AIS system. But the MOB Dolphin does come with an interesting-looking PC program for monitoring and managing the up-to-99 pendants it can handle…
Echomax RTE looks great, but what about USA?
I first got excited about RTEs (Radar Target Enhancers) in 2002 when the Sea-Me came out; in fact, it inspired one of my favorite PMY columns (in which you’ll also learn why I want a whomping big horn on Gizmo). The Sea-Me went on to be quite a successful product, at least in the U.K., but now Echomax — the Brits who already build a respected line of static radar reflectors — has come out with its own Active-X RTE, and apparently it just plain kicks Sea-Me’s butt…
Mcmurdo Fast Find PLB, Ritter tested
If the remarkably small and inexpensive GPS-equipped Fast Find PLB also works very well, what does that mean? My guess is that it makes McMurdo king of the PLB hill, at least for a...
Thermal imaging, coming to your boat eventually?
This graph is a thermal sensor manufacturer’s dream — and was, in fact, created by the marketing department at FLIR — but, hey, that’s us way over to the right. I’d love to see...
