The Marine Electronics Hub
So Sail Editor Peter Nielsen sends me this shot wondering who makes that articulated stalky thing holding up the B&G autopilot, and where he can get some for his boat. I have no idea, and I’m interested too. Can anyone fill us in? Of course I asked Peter where he’d seen it, and damned if he hasn’t …
Sometimes you-know-who works in mysterious ways. On Saturday afternoon I watched a long-time friend, Tom Amory, set sail for Finland with his daughter and her friend, but without the Simrad AI50 Class B AIS transponder he’d tried so hard to obtain…
While evidence of unusual EPIRB failure activity remains scarce, who doesn’t like the idea of testing their own, as often and as thoroughly as possible? So I always try…
Well, if I’m going to post on Memorial Day, I guess a war sub-text is appropriate. You see, Rob Stormer got very upset about what I thought was a polite, if argumentative, commentary on his EPIRB failure “investigation”. His displeasure is pretty vivid in the rebuttal he posted today, but you should have heard…
I was just getting used to the idea that Garmin really would buy Raymarine—lots of industry people seemed to think it would happen—but apparently now it’s off…
Is there a problem with EPIRBs? Robin Storm thinks so, and is even calling for a congressional investigation into what he perceives as an alarming number of failures and a flawed failure investigation system. But I read his whole report and, at the risk of sounding cranky, must ask: “Where’s the meat?”…
Preston Calvert is one of several valuable contributors to the HD radar discussion, which is how I got e-mailing with him last night. Which is how I confirmed that he is indeed the same Preston whose Riviera 45 was tested in PMY recently, except his Neuromancer3 is better looking, and a lot more geeked out, than the boat they used in the main photo shoot. It also turns out that Preston is a new user of SeaKey v2, and he
Doh! There’s a pall of embarrassment hanging over Panbo HQ today. When I first reviewed the new Raymarine software and Platinum+ charts, I complained that I couldn’t see the live tide and current icons that were an announced feature. None appeared after the “real” reset either, and so I complained to Raymarine. Well, gosh, they were right under my nose: select any regular tide or current icon on a chart, hit OK, and—ta! ta!—there’s a new “Animate” soft key choice. Which gets you to the very able screen above, full size here. Every station…
I have a gripe about High Def radar, or Ultra HD or Super HD or whatever; as best I can tell there is no identifiable technology, specs, or benchmarks to compare one with another, or even to grasp what it is. But it definitely is something. I’ve seen screen shots of Northstar/Simrad HD that looked good, I’ve heard excellent reports on Garmin’s HD and Raymarine’s, which I also saw myself, though only in tight quarters and flat water. But last week I spent nearly six hours inshore and off with a Furuno UHD 4kW 3.5’ array, and…wowsuh, I was definately, and highly, impressed…
After I’d written my first impressions of the new E-Series 4.29 software and the Platinum+ charts it supports, I learned that I hadn’t done the “real” version of the recommended factory/master reset. You see, though Raymarine’s own FAQ is unclear about it, a reset done by powering up while holding down the leftmost soft key is apparently different, and deeper, than the one I’d done from the System Setup menu. I know for sure that this is true, as…
