Panbo

The Marine Technology Hub

Panbo News and Reviews

18

Electrical & Engines / Green Boating

Testing the Efoy Comfort fuel cell, and the value of premium amp hours

For almost a year I hardly used this little control and monitoring panel because the attached EFOY fuel cell was already flawlessly performing its duty:  If engine alternator, solar panels, and/or shore power were not keeping Gizmo’s main battery bank at the voltage parameters I’d configured, the EFOY automatically and quietly charged the bank for a variable period also configured. While the amp hours are expensive, I’m convinced that an EFOY Comfort could be a very pleasing addition to many cruising sailboats and trawlers…

14

Editors' Blog / Communications / Safety & SAR / AIS

USCG warns about LED lights interfering with VHF & AIS, wants test results

The USCG recently issued a Safety Alert about how LED lighting near VHF antennas can cause poor reception on attached radios, which of course includes AIS and DSC reception along with regular marine VHF audio channels. I’m surprised because I remember such problems coming up and being solved a decade ago, which was very early in the evolution of LED lighting…but…

25

Entertainment

How to get TV on your boat, the choices expand

It’s no surprise that I get a lot of questions about the best way to receive and watch TV onboard.  The traditional choices for homes were already more complicated on a boat, especially a cruising boat, and now there’s the added choice of streaming TV over the internet. So in this entry, I’ll detail the options and hopefully you can determine which one best fits your needs and budget.

23

Editors' Blog / Communications / AIS

Standard Horizon GX6000 bad and good news, plus new HX890 and HX40

What the heck? An AIS transceiver with a decent antenna up reasonably high can see other AIS transceivers fairly far away, but not 3,508 nautical miles! What’s actually illustrated here was a Standard Horizon GX6000 mistranslating AIS target positions into NMEA 2000, as strongly suggested by the photo below. But as bad as that glitch was, there’s already a firmware fix and the way the update operation works has further benefits.

25

Network & control / PC & peripheral / Communications

Using a WiFi Bridge to connect your boat to the internet, interfaces compared

There are a lot of WiFi bridges that can connect your boat to the Internet, though as I mentioned in my article on marine internet, depending on WiFi for connectivity while travelling can be hit and miss.  But, without a WiFi bridge the chances of a usable connection decline dramatically…

17

Wireless & Apps / Navigation / The Trade

Garmin’s ActiveCaptain marine business plan looks good, plus Eartha

On Tuesday I met with some of the ActiveCaptain Community team, and the key news is that Garmin recently contacted marine businesses to explain the three-tier business “ownership” and advertising plan they intend to roll out in late August. I think it’s brilliant (and so is the world’s largest revolving globe).