The Marine Electronics Hub
Yesterday Roger (a true DYI guy I’ve noted before) commented enthusiastically on Nasa Marine’s “AIS Radar.” It certainly does seem to provide a complete AIS listener for a very reasonable price, about $365, but I have some concerns....
Hey, I actually can build something more substantial than sentences! Below is a plywood creation (bigger here) that will let me test the borrowed Maretron products (everything shown) and other NMEA 2000 gear either in my...
Last year Doug Ritter (right) and his Equipped to Survive Foundation (ETS) did the boating (and outdoors) community a tremendous service by uncovering performance problems in the optional GPS portion of PLBs and EPIRBs made by...
Me matey Charlie Doane just returned from skippering a New England to Caribbean delivery that included its rightful share of electronics drama. One night, sailing to windward and heeled down hard, he heard the “instruments down!” call from the cockpit. His...
One problem with putting together a high power marine WiFi system is the need to use finger-thick low-loss LMR 400 coax—the shorter the better—between the high-gain antenna and the radio. The stuff is hard to run and particularly ungainly...
Friday gizmo: Davis just announced WindScribe, a $129 ultrasonic wind speed sensor that apparently uses some of the technology seen in Airmar’s WeatherStation. WindScribe also measures temperature and computes wind chill, and can be mounted using an included...
In addition to Kees’ report yesterday, Dan sent in a link describing another successful test of the Nasa AIS engine, this time in conjunction with GPSNavX charting software for Mac computers. (Thanks, Dan, and I’ll follow up on your...
I’d never heard of this Nasa AIS “Engine” before, but oddly got two e-mails yesterday that referenced it. It seems almost too good to be true: a simple AIS listener that can feed ship information to a...
When Navionics Platinum chart cards come out this summer, 3D photo mapping will come to boat plotters. Platinum (still not much on the Web yet) is really going to turn some heads, as it did during...
OK, I’m obsessed with charts, but I’m not the only navigator thus afflicted. Last week I used a snippet of a wonderful 1685 chart that’s available on the Net, and promised to tell more. The source is the U.S....
