Category: Weather

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The New Iridium GO! exec Redefines Personal Off-the-Grid Connectivity

Iridium Communications today unveiled the most capable, ultra-portable solution for truly global connections to all smartphones, tablets and laptops – a new class of personal satellite communication device called the Iridium GO! exec. Built for the professional but made for everyone, the Iridium GO! exec provides a natural extension of your world off-the-grid to send and receive email, use chat or office applications, make phone calls, share pictures, post to social media or get help in an emergency…

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Raymarine Announces LightHouse 4 for Boaters

) – Raymarine announces the next generation of the LightHouse Operating System for all boaters. New LightHouse 4 delivers even easier operation, exciting personalization options, and several new features. As with all Raymarine software upgrades, LightHouse 4 is available to all Axiom, Axiom+, Axiom Pro, and Axiom XL owners completely free as a downloadable update. 

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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…

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Coastal Explorer app for iPads & iPhones

Many of us have been happily beta testing the iOS version of Coastal Explorer for quite a while, but Rose Point Navigation has a long history of not releasing new products until they feel really good about them (and sometimes not at all). So it’s wonderful news that the Coastal Explorer app is now official, with many excellent features free to anyone, and the entire navigation package available to owners of CE for Windows until the $50 annual subscription is instituted…

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Trial Run: TZ iBoat v. 2

My iPad is a veritable archeological dig of marine navigation apps. At some point over the years, I have installed just about every major release: C-Map Plan2Nav, Navionics Boating, NV Charts, iNavX, AquaMap, Garmin Bluechart Mobile (that became Active Captain), and some others lost to memory. It’s the iPad equivalent of Gizmo’s radar mast. With that history, it should be no surprise that I downloaded and installed TimeZero’s TZ iBoat app version 2 when it was released a few weeks ago…

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SiriusXM and Garmin GXM 54 add Fish Mapping to satellite weather

SiruisXM has expanded on their satellite delivered weather options with their new Fish Mapping plan for anglers. Does Fish Mapping deliver the goods for the offshore angler? With sea temperature, plankton, weed line, sea surface height and fishing recommendations there’s a lot of data to help you find fish and Garmin makes it easy to display on their MFDs.

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A few valuable boating apps, and what’s your favorite?

Most boaters carry around an impressively powerful and easy to use computer in their pockets: their smartphone. Smartphones have enough processing power, sensors and capabilities to augment or possibly even replace dedicated navigation equipment onboard your boat. Mobile phone and tablet apps for boating have steadily improved and today offer a compelling set of functionalities that can make boating both safer and easier.

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Chuck Berry, Ali’s butterfly, and the National Hurricane Center

Dorian is powered up and perilously close, but while the forecasting is better than ever — based almost entirely on massive data collection and modeling by NOAA — the meteorologists are still quite uncertain about the hurricane’s path. I’m thinking a lot about folks in the Abacos and in the vast areas that might be struck next, but, sorry, I’m also remembering how I managed to use Chuck Berry and Muhammad Ali in the opening paragraph of a July 2003 SAIL magazine article about visiting the National Hurricane Center…

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SiriusXM InfoLink, new features and lower priced SiriusXM weather receivers

SiriusXM Marine Weather on your boat is getting cheaper and likely to get more capable in the near future.  Furuno and Raymarine have both recently released new SiriusXM weather and audio receivers at very attractive price points.  The two receivers look very similar and it turns out there’s a very good reason.

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Furuno Introduces Fourth Generation BBWX4 SiriusXM Marine Weather Receiver for NavNet TZtouch and TZtouch2

Furuno has introduced the BBWX4 fourth-generation SiriusXM Marine Weather Receiver for NavNet TZtouch and NavNet TZtouch2. Furuno and SiriusXM have teamed up to bring you live, up-to-date weather information and forecasting, offering peace of mind to boaters, and a crucial edge for fishermen, all over the US and southern Canada…