Panbo

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Panbo News and Reviews

AIS MoB & SART display, Garmin nails it? 19

Safety & SAR / AIS

AIS MoB & SART display, Garmin nails it?

AIS-MoB_test_1_Garmin_Alarm_cPanbo.jpg

I think that personal AIS beacons are a deservedly hot new safety technology but, as discussed in June, the display manufacturers are just learning how to handle them well. In fact, right around that same time I had to add bug alert comments to an earlier Kannad R10 AIS MoB beacon entry about how a certain Garmin software update could cause its MFDs to shut down after receiving the beacon’s test signal!  It was an embarrassing moment in product improvement, as documented in these email warnings to the Newport-Bermuda race fleet, but Garmin eventually solved the issue and may indeed have set a new bar for the proper integration of AIS beacons. The screen above, for instance, shows how very clearly the Garmin 7212 on Gizmo alarms shortly after I activated the test mode on a Kannad R10…

NMEA Conference 2012, improved by strife? 16

The Trade

NMEA Conference 2012, improved by strife?

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The 2012 NMEA Conference has been completely redesigned — as in NEW, NEW, NEW! — and I have a pretty good idea why. There was a strange moment during last year’s conference, a noisy late-night hotel bar scene that got just a little quieter when many of us realized that the most senior managers of Garmin, Furuno, Navico, and Raymarine in attendence were gathered in a corner talking intensely. What the heck? The Big Four of marine electronics are pretty fierce competitors and you don’t normally see the honchos having drinks together. Of course there was joking about price fixing but apparently the real subject was how to fix the Conference. To understand the issues — which will affect most all us boaters eventually — you need to know more about the dynamics of the NMEA…

Class E AIS, will it be huge? 15

Wireless & Apps / AIS

Class E AIS, will it be huge?

AIS_Class_E_early_TSI_presentation.jpg

Back in March I wrote about the Small Vessel Cooperative Tracking project that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entered into the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Essentially, a DHS department called the Port and Coastal Surveillance Improvement Project (PCSI) sought out an innovative way to persuade boaters to voluntarily submit their ID’s and tracks so that various law enforcement agencies would have better situational awareness. Well, today I get to tell you about the idea that was awarded the SBIR phase two grant of about $500,000. We won’t see the results for many months yet, and there are more acronyms involved in thoroughly understanding the concept, but I think Class E AIS will eventually be a huge advance in boating safety and enjoyment…

Greening Gizmo, 17 amps of solar panel! 26

Electrical & Engines / Green Boating

Greening Gizmo, 17 amps of solar panel!

Blue Sky IPN remote 17 amps on Gizmo cPanboJPG.jpg

Happy day! You may recall that I planned to put solar panels on Gizmo last summer, but in fact I didn’t know what to expect in terms of output or even if that output would support my Sea Frost refrigeration system. Well, wow, you’re looking at 17.3 amps of solar juice at around local apparent noon today, and I’m seeing 12 amps as I write this four hours later. And though I’ve been running all sorts of gear all day, and the refrigeration for two days, the battery bank is at 12.6v, which is a healthy number I rarely see unless I’ve just been out cruising. I’m thinking of having a cold beer to celebrate!…

NautiCloud, 2 Ubiquiti Bullets = high power WiFi contender? 32

Wireless & Apps

NautiCloud, 2 Ubiquiti Bullets = high power WiFi contender?

NautiCloud_vs_RogueWave_on_Gizmo_cPanbo.jpg

Getting online with WiFi is a big deal for many cruising boats these days and, since the best technologies are somewhat hard to understand and choose among, it’s always a lively subject on Panbo. Normally I’d hesitate to write about the new NautiCloud system because it’s still partially in development, but it’s already a good illustration of what’s possible in high performance marine WiFi and ties together some of our previous conversations on the subject. It also includes some good ideas that all the developers in this niche should consider (I think)…

AMEC NK-80 0183/N2K adaptor, and Milltech’s 7th year of AIS 13

AIS / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

AMEC NK-80 0183/N2K adaptor, and Milltech’s 7th year of AIS

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It looks like Actisense has some serious competition when it comes to translating data back forth from NMEA 0183 to NMEA 2000. And while that’s not a sexy marine electronics topic, it’s an important one as many boats use a changing mix of the two protocols. The AMEC NK-80 adaptor above was recently NMEA 2000 certified and it seems quite able. If you go to the NK-80 page of Milltech Marine — which helped develop the product and distributes it in the U.S. — you can download the manual and thus check out the nitty-gritty of specific data fields translated. What I notice is that the NK-80 seems to cover every AIS PGN and lots more, which seems to be a problem for the otherwise able Actisense NGT-1 series of adaptors…

MarineTraffic.com, appreciating the nuances 20

AIS

MarineTraffic.com, appreciating the nuances

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“Panbo is great, but Ben is so nuts about AIS!”  That’s some feedback from an electronics installer that a friend passed along and I can only plead guilty. In fact, it’s getting worse. Sure, I’d like to think that I recognized the safety value of AIS early and that all my reporting on the birth and proliferation of Class B transponder has been worthwhile. And you’ll hear about more testing of the new AIS SARTs and MoB devices soon. But recently I’ve also been getting deep into the fun side of the technology — dare we call it social media? — and I want to share some things I’ve learned about MarineTraffic.com…

DY NavLink, how will your iPad get boat data? 22

NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

DY NavLink, how will your iPad get boat data?

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On Friday I got a press release announcing Digital Yacht’s NavLink NMEA2000 to WiFi Server, and while I certainly understand the desire to get boat sensor data of all sorts onto iPads and other tablets, I remain confused about how it will all play out. For instance, how is the NavLink “revolutionary” when the Chetco SeaSmart and DMK boxes purportedly do the same job? And whereas there is no NMEA standard for putting N2K onto Ethernet yet, are all these products doing it differently so they won’t necessarily work with even the few marine apps that already accept data over WiFi? Then there’s the issue of NMEA 2000 certification; though I sure wish the standards organization would get this sorted out, I still think their certification process must especially be honored when a product is all about translating NMEA’s intellectual property. When I wrote about that several of you disagreed, but I understand that Chetco is very close to certification and I trust Digital Yacht will also work on it. But I don’t see NMEA 2000 certification on the NavLink box and also don’t now what DY means by “Digital Yacht has their own, certified version of NMEA2000, called N2NET, and in the future customers will see more and more products enabled with this interface.” I’m hoping DY will clarify — they just did, and well, see first comment on Panbo — but in the meantime I’ve been testing some other means to the same end…

Skyfall, a family-size super yacht? 5

What's on board...

Skyfall, a family-size super yacht?

Levey_family_on_Skyfall__cPanbo.jpg

This picture of the Levey family is very similar to one which was published years ago in an article called Early Adopter that I’m still proud of. It was an unusual story because at first I didn’t want to write it. When I met Mark and Natalia in 2007 they were very early adopters of a snazzy nav system that was behaving quite badly, and frankly I was reluctant to cover what seemed like a possible accident about to happen (and, besides, writing about gear that doesn’t work very well is not what enthusiast magazines are about). But when they motored Alexis — an Azimut 55 named for their daughter — into Camden a year later, the Simrad Glass Bridge 60 was working better and, more important, I realized that this couple epitomized an early adaptor attitude that works. They like new technology for sure, but they know it doesn’t always perform as advertised and they don’t let that get in the way of their boating safety and enjoyment. I hope you’ll check out the article before taking a peek at the Levey’s new boat…