Monthly Archive: August 2018

14

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

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

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.

1

Talk Anywhere Onboard: Raymarine’s New Wireless Ready Ray90 and Ray91 VHF

WILSONVILLE, OR (August 15, 2018) – Traditional marine VHF radios keep you confined to the helm with their short handset coil-cords that limit your ability to move about. Raymarine’s new Ray90 and Ray91 modular VHF radios give you the freedom to roam and communicate from anywhere onboard using optional wireless handset stations…

1

Digital Yacht iKommunicate Gateway Adds Full Coastal Explorer Integration

With the new iKommunicate update, just plug its network cable into a wireless router, connect the PC wirelessly (or wired) to the same router and within seconds the two devices will auto-discover each other and start sharing data.  All information on the iKommunicate’s NMEA 2000 interface or any one of its three NMEA0183 interfaces, will come streaming through in Coastal Explorer protocol…

4

Marine Industry First: Raymarine Delivers Axiom UAV App

Delivering a marine electronics industry first, Raymarine Axiom users can now take to the skies with the latest LightHouse 3.6 OS update. The new Axiom UAV app brings together the power and simplicity of Raymarine navigation with advanced unmanned aerial imaging. Compatible with the popular and highly capable DJI Mavic Pro drone, the Axiom UAV app automates many common tasks including launch, airborne imaging, in-flight navigation, and return-to boat…