How about a 62’ sailing cat with an interior like a sleek apartment and the performance of a carbon racer? Sailing Anarchy has the story here, including a larger version of the picture above, in which you can better see all the Raymarine electronics. I’ll bet those big displays are E-120s, which have XVGA out ports, and thus that 42” LCD TV may be be set up to repeat one of the E screens. I’ve seen a Gunboat 42’ in a stiff breeze on Chesapeake Bay and she was flying. Check out the video at the company site.
When I had lunch in Miami with the Sea Smart folks, they showed up with a Mystic, the somewhat weird but wonderful VHF/GPS hybrid that Uniden introduced about three years ago. I tested it then and was very impressed with design, build, and performance (gave it an FKP award, too). I still am, and now you can buy one for $300, or $390 with all U.S. Charts. (But note that Magellan Blue Nav charts are getting old, and you can only load one small area at a time into the Mystic).
Think about what the Mystic would give you in combination with a Sea Smart account. Where ever you went within 5 watt VHF range of the coast stations, you’d have live operator access, phone service, web tracking, and DSC distress calling in addition to regular VHF comms and a little B&W plotter. Plus you can plot other DSC radios on a Mystic, and vice versa. The thing’s too big to swing on your belt but easy to lug from boat to boat, or across an island. I’m hoping to see a Mystic upgrade or competitor someday, plus a bunch of smaller handhelds with GPS/DSC built in, no plotting. (But I do not know of anything about to happen).
I suppose it was predictable, but it’s still amazing. The Garmin 478 above has all the XM Weather and Audio abilities that distinquished the 376C, and it comes loaded with all U.S. charts and all U.S. and Canada road maps. It’s fast too, even the ‘Find’ command is not slowed up by what must be a zillion POIs, nav aids, intersections, etc. stored somewhere in that little casing (and hence I’d bet that Garmin has sped up Find in the first all-U.S.-charts 192C I tested last summer).
Not that the 478 is perfect, even if there is nothing like it out there. For instance, these are the new G2 charts, but apparently the 478 will not be able to show the vaunted perspective view. I do gather from the spec page that it will show the photos available on G2 cards, and the screen above (bigger here) does look richer than regular BlueCharts. But, as good as this screen is, I find myself wanting to plug the 478 into a bigger monitor, maybe use a wireless keyboard and mouse with it too. The unit lets you use an expensive XM subscription anywhere you go but in some of those places, like a boat, you may want to expand the system. Just a thought, probably inspired by how rapidly this unit has evolved over the years.
I should also add that the Panbo reader who recently complained about the “Surface Wind” coming from XM to this machine was right; it’s old. He tells me that Garmin has acknowledged the problem and is working on it, but I also noticed this time around that you don’t get predicted wind and wave model data, something the new Sirius Marine Weather is very good at.
Garmin also announced a new pair of radar scanners this week, this time inside a smaller, 24” diameter casing, and with more emphasis on the digital processing going on in there. Finally, though Garmin hasn’t yet promoted it, many of its new plotters apparently do support AIS. The 478 is not one of them but I think I’ll soon get the chance to try it on a 3210.
Well, so far a very small sampling of Panbites (?) is not too excited about Sea Smart. But I am. I think it may well become a “no brainer” for offshore fishermen, long distance coastal cruisers, and others, especially once it’s fully rolled out. I for one am tickled that at last there’s a service that makes good use of DSC. Especially as I’ve been in touch with the U.S.C.G. again, and the latest on Rescue 21 is discouraging. At least they've finally got a revised implementation schedule—above, and bigger here
—which is better than the situation I wrote about last year. But check it out. Full implementation of R21, once expected by 12/2006, is now set for 2011!
Now Sea Smart is not meant for distress calling, but its call center will be able to hear DSC distress calls and relay them to the Guard if needed. I like that, and think its another reason to wish the service well. But there is a contrarian view, expressed to me by a couple of you via the back channels. There have been issues with Sea Tow and other towing services over salvage claims—in fact I once wrote about such a questionable claim, and then about all the follow up letters. So cynics theorize that Sea Smart’s long range coastal VHF network will give Sea Tow franchisees a head start on possible salvage operations. My take:
* Sea Smart might make any towing service better because it will give you a more reliable way to get a call through or get help from an operator, and the operators will know exactly where you are, even if you aren’t sure.
* Sea Tow especially gets better because its dispatch center is in the room next to Sea Smart. (And the combined subscription package, $262, is going to appeal to many).
* Every boater should learn exactly what the difference is between towing and salvage.
As explained a bit yesterday, Sea Smart has taken over the infrastructure—towers, radios, and marine operator licenses—that MariTEL shut down in 2003. As shown above, from seasmartvhf.com, the service is live on the west coast of Florida, coming to the NJ/NY/CT shore soon, and supposedly the whole U.S. coast by late 2007. Like the old service, Sea Smart is primarily offering ship-to-shore phone calls, but at a flat rate that’s much simpler and more reasonable than it used to be. Range, of course, will usually outdo even the most souped up cell phone setup, and the operators can supposedly supply “information on the nearest fuel dock or restaurant…” (though I’m not clear about far the Long Island, NY, call center is able or willing to go with this sort of ‘concierge’ service).
At any rate, current Sea Tow members get unlimited calls, including U.S. long distance charges, for $144 per year, while non-members pay $204. Note that each call is limited to five minutes and the service does not support shore-to-ship calls. (Note also that the shore side of your phone conversation can be heard by anyone tuned to the channel, and, if this service takes off, calling slots could get scarce). Sea Smart had a temporary station set up at the Miami show and I tried a call to my cell. It was somehow pleasingly retro to place it with a live operator and the voice quality was quite good.
Getting the Sea Smart operator is just a matter of selecting the right local channel (the possibilities are: 24–28 or 84–86) and holding down the transmit button for 5 seconds, listening for an automated confirmation message, and then holding the button for another 5 seconds. DSC is not actually needed to connect with the operator, but Sea Smart requires that you have an MMSI along with a DSC radio attached to a GPS. That means that once the operator gets your MMSI he or she can poll your radio for a position. Sea Smart seems to have two reasons to push DSC. One is that when help is needed the call center can then very easily give good position information to the adjoining Sea Tow dispatch center. Another is that DSC polling lets Sea Smart include Automatic Vessel Location (AVL) as part of the service. The screen shot below, and bigger here, shows you how, say, your family might check on your fishing trip.
I have even more noodling on this subject but I’m really curious what you all are thinking. Might you sign up for Sea Smart when it goes live in your area?
Researching Sea Smart is getting me nostalgic. Back in the 70’s—when I was running a daysailer, delivering yachts, dragging scallops…out on the water a lot— Camden Marine was a tiny independent company with an antenna on a local ‘mountain’, a license to operate 2 “public correspondence” VHF channels, and a few staff who took turns handling the calls from one’s home. Back then, way before cell phones, they had a nice business patching through calls from summer cruisers, lobstermen, etc. They also had such good range that they sometimes relayed distress calls to the Coast Guard. The operators were easily the best known voices on the Bay, and it was a comfort to know that they were almost always listening. (Plus you could hear both sides of any phone call, and listening in was a popular anchorage entertainment.)
You may know the rest of the story. Cell phones really hurt the business, but then an ambitious company called MariTEL bought up almost all the coastal stations (plus more spectrum from the FCC), centralized operations, and made extravagant plans to improve the technology, enabling DSC driven automated dialing, e-mail, etc. Six years ago, I was writing excitedly about MariTEL claims that it would soon be able to hear DSC calls 50–100 miles off the entire U.S. coast and its strong hints that the Coast Guard was going to contract their service in order to quickly adopt DSC distress call ears. But before some of the hype even got into print, the general telecom boom came crashing down, and MariTEL’s big plans with it. In 2003 they even shut down the regular marine operators (and I wrote about their rise and fall with some bitterness here).
Well, guess what? MariTEL still exists, at least as a spectrum and tower owning skeleton of a company, and Sea Tow is licensing its VHF assets to create a very interesting service called Sea Smart. The marine operator is back, though this time around she’s apt to have a “New Yawk” accent. More soon.
Today I realized that Garmin has put up more information about their second generation BlueCharts, including the screen shot of the perspective view above, and the unusual top-down high-res photo below. Garmin announced G2 in November along with a boat load of new gear, which is all now coming to market. I’m on the list to see the G2’s on a couple of new plotters, and, of course, will report here. I also came across some surprises on Garmin’s Web site, some seemingly only accessible by randomly appearing links: a new blog; a very cool looking Smart Phone mapping software/data system with combo Bluetooth GPS, speaker phone, and cell mount (whew!); and a mapping program for certain cell phones already GPS enabled. There’s also Nuvi. No location awareness stone unturned!
I’m glad to see that Sail has posted a PDF of this year’s Freeman K. Pittman awards (downloadable from this page). In honor of former Technical Editor Pittman, every December four of us choose what we think are the most innovative, exciting products recently introduced in the category we cover. I take it quite seriously. Regular Panbo readers won’t be too surprised to learn that I singled out Garmin’s 376C with XM Weather, Navman’s 3380 autopilot, Uniden’s UM625C VHF, Navionics’s Platinum charts, and Si-Tex’s AIS receiver (which I qualified as a contrarian choice due to its poor build quality). What did I miss, or better yet, what brand new product should be on my candidate list for the Feb., 2007, awards?
Does it strike you as peculiar that Navionics is packaging their new NavPlanner software with a special multi card reader? Heck, didn’t Navionics spearhead the move to standard memory cards? Aren’t all its current products on either CF or SD formats? Wasn’t there once a rumour spread by the likes of me that Navionics was thinking of putting a free planning program on every card? That’s true, but dates to the days when Microsoft had assured Navionics that its chart files could be simultaneously protected and read using normal MS file features. That turned out to be untrue, and that’s why you need a special reader to view Navionics charts on a PC. I think the same is true of C-Map, whose charts now come on SD cards too. So it goes. Using standard memory cards in plotters still makes it easier to do firmware updates and save waypoints, and also reduces overall chart card costs. NavPlanner, by the way, is still not shipping, but “very close”.
Buying a new cell phone, and other personal matters
Mar 19, 2006
Generally I’m pretty good about sticking to marine electronics, but today I’m going slightly off topic. For one thing I’m looking for a new cell phone and service contract, and I’m betting Panbo readers may have some helpful opinions. I’m thinking of dropping my venerable Nokia 5165 with AT&T analog and TDMA service in favor of Cingular GSM and a HST Wizard, aka the 8125 above. It’s a hell of a phone, and would let me try at least one of the wireless e-mail and web services that some boaters are becoming fond of (nicely combined with WiFi), not to mention Windows Mobile marine apps like the coming ActiveMap. I also need a better phone because I’m going to be spending a lot of April and May in Boston getting some medical treatments (one of those prostate problems us old guys run into). On a cheerier note, I’m pretty much set on GSM because it’s finally gotten to midcoast Maine and also because my daughter thrillingly reminded me of its global capabilities by calling me from a boat on the Ganges River last week. She just bought an Indian SIM card and popped it in her T-Mobile Sidekick II; the call quality was superb. She’s why I went to India in 1999, when she was an exchange student, and now she’s briefly back there as part of a course called Covering Religions that she’s taking at Columbia Journalism School. A hell of a course! Check out her contribution to the class blog. (She’s the one with magenta forehead, and she makes me proud!)
It made sense to me that Simrad’s WR20 RemoteCommander shared an innovation award with the Northstar 8000i at the Miami boat show. It uses Bluetooth to wirelessly connect (“up to” 300’, as they say) with a boat's SimNet (aka NMEA 2000) network, and Simrad has equipped it with custom messages able to duplicate nearly every button push on all its SimNet-equipped devices. (These are the proprietary messages I was talking about here, and a good example of how they can be used innovatively). Potentially you can use this remote to power steer with your autopilot, zoom your chart plotter, change channels on your VHF, just about anything. Plus, if you do have the Simrad RS80 Series VHF that's SimNet enabled, the remote can also be a wireless handset (the Bluetooth audio going directly to the radio, not through SimNet). The remote can also display one to four lines of data from many sources on the network, including non-Simrad sensors. And finally, it is supposedly ready to work with Simrad equipment that hasn’t even been developed yet, though I don’t understand how.
By the way, Simrad’s purchase of Lowrance seems to be a done deal. It’s interesting that both companies have done a lot with NMEA 2000, though in different ways. I wonder how their product strategies and lines will be merged, if at all.
Inside a Hotbox is a cellular highspeed data card—EVDO, Edge, whatever you want. The box converts the cellular connection into a local WiFi hotspot. The company that makes it has equipped the particular model above with an M-Tec cellular amp, a high dB marine antenna, and even a VOIP phone, which sounds like quite the package. Unfortunately its Web site doesn’t really detail this setup very well, and also leaves out the daunting $4,500 price tag! The bigger picture, though, is that I’m hearing more and more about this cell-to-WiFi concept, and I like it. I even came across a Norwegian company that’s at least planning a product like this that also integrates NMEA 0183 data. That’s a real wow, because then your boat’s hotspot can both put you online and feed GPS, etc. to your charting program, AND the same data can be send out to the Internet, meaning that, “external users with appropriate software installed can follow the boat’s progress, …a very powerful tool for tracking, monitoring or fleet management.” High speed cellular data is also the foundation of the interesting KVH/Microsoft product (WiFi too) I got a glimpse of in Miami. KVH has now posted a press release, but pricing isn’t on it. I’m told that the system with an external amp and antenna will be “under $1,500” with “all-you-can-eat Internet and MSN TV service under $100/month.” Plus I think you can pop the PCMIA card and use the cell data connection off the boat, in your laptop. Given all that, and KVH customer support, the souped up Hotbox looks a little pricey.
In the photo above, taken on an Etec/Lowrance demo boat in Miami, I’m setting up a “Custom Gauges” window, and this particular screen is showing me some of the data available on the NMEA 2000 (LowranceNet) bus, specifically what’s coming from the port side Etec outboard. The same data would be available to any other displays on the bus that cared to recognize it, which could include, of course, Lowrance’s LMF-200 and -400 digital gauges (see test system). I think it’s slick. For one thing you’ll notice some data that you’ve likely never seen on a standard engine gauge, like load percentage (which I understand can be very useful for spotting a problem like a bent prop). For another thing, you’ll never lose sight of any particular number, like RPMs or oil pressure, because if one gauge or screen fails, the data is still available everywhere else. Plus, of course, all the data, and power for smaller sensors and gauges, is in one cable.
But there is one little caveat, as grumbled about yesterday by Panbo correspondent Chris. It is perfectly legal for a manufacturer to send a certain percentage of proprietary messages through the 2000 network (I’m not sure of the exact percentage). This makes sense, even encourages innovation. But in Evinrude’s case the result seems a little rude. You see the company’s I-Command gauges are very obviously OEM’d by Lowrance. The only difference is that their firmware can read and display proprietary engine messages, like diagnostics, and even control functions like instant self winterization (very cool)…and, according to Chris, they are much more expensive. Gotcha! I talked to an Etec representative about this and he said the policy was not written in stone; in other words, Etec might open up their private messages to Lowrance and others. But then Lowrance or whoever would have to write code to use those messages. In some ways this detail of the NMEA standard is a potential strength, and you’ve got to give Evinrude credit for all the data it is opening up (Note: everything below, including precision fuel flow from the ECM, is 2000 standard data). But I sure understand how this proprietary/open data detail, especially along with the cable dissimilarity discussed yesterday, could frustrate a guy like Chris, who’s just trying network a boat like he heard NMEA 2000 could.
Well, it was odd really; the very day I blogged about how nothing seemed to be happening with NMEA 2000 cabling issues and how well a proprietary LowranceNet backbone worked with a standard NMEA 2000 backbone (annoying a couple of you), I learned that changes are in store for both. Good changes! The information came in the form of a NMEA press release titled NMEA 2000 Working Group Completes Its Work on Cable and Connector System. It’s not online, and was darn vague anyway; it took me a few e-mails to tease out the following:
* After 18 months of studying the possibility of an alternate lighter, cheaper NMEA 2000 cable and connector standard, the subcommittee decided it wasn’t necessary. The main reason given is that Molex, a prime supplier of the connection hardware, promised a “substantial price reduction” in the existing cables and connectors (aka “the physical layer”). That’s the Micro version of the 2000 physical layer seen upper right in the picture (bigger here), and sold by Maretron.
* The current Micro T connector seen in the photo retails for about $21, and a 3 meter made-up cable is $44. That’s actually not all that expensive when compared to some marine electronics proprietary cables, but it has put off some boat builders and electronics installers. The new Molex gear—which, by the way, is also sold as DeviceNet— will probably have more plastic parts, but will be something like 25% less expensive. That’s good.
* Perhaps even better, in the same NMEA press release Lowrance announced that its proprietary twist on connectors and odd pin layout (seen above) are history. Next year all LowranceNet connectors will be the NMEA approved screw on variety. That even includes the plugs on back of their displays, which is not actually required by the standard (so far, only Maretron makes devices with a standard NMEA 2000 plug on the back). Lowrance will of course provide adaptors so that all current LowranceNet gear can adapt easily to the new stuff.
* And, finally, Lowrance says that it anticipates making this change without raising prices. Which is really something given that several current LowranceNet sensors cost $50 total, which includes almost 12’ of cable, a T connector, and the sensor!
Why did NMEA take a year and half to say NO to a 2nd cable standard? Why did Lowrance offer its own 2nd cable standard for just a year? I don’t really understand what happened, but the future (perhaps the result?) looks good. Pretty soon there will be several choices in approved NMEA 2000 cabling—from economical smaller boat grade to industrial workboat/megayacht quality—and they’ll all plug and play together.
It’s going to be short today, as these pictures speak for themselves. They probably date from the early 60’s, though even Lowrance (who provided them) doesn’t seem sure. But that’s about when the company’s portable flasher—wonderfully named the Fish-Lo-K-Tor, and also known as the Little Green Box—really took off. According to Lowrance history, it eventually sold a million units! None of us, manufacturers included, pay much attention to the old stuff as technology hurtles forward, but I’m starting to get nostalgic about gear like this. I wonder if there are collectors?
Furuno has two new fishfinders, the FCV585 and FCV620, that seem interesting. For one thing, better seen in a big picture, they are styled more sleekly than normal Furuno gear. More important perhaps, they incorporate Digital Signal Processing (here’s Chuck Husick on DSP) for cleaner, easier to understand imagery. DSP also improves automatic control, but the Furuno press release proudly notes that the units retain the company’s “long-standing and highly revered direct access knobs”. I do not know if Furuno’s DSP is equivalent to Raymarine’s HD (High Definition Fish Imaging), but I do know that the latter has earned the respect of some fishermen. I also know that it’s darn hard to directly compare fishfinders (can’t run them at the same time, can’t fake fish), and guys will be yakking about the relative merits of these machines for years to come.
Panbo correspondant Jeff Siegel is excited about the nautical possibilities of this new PC architecture called UMPC, hyped recently as Origami, and I can see why. I got excited when the first tablet PCs came out, until I realized that you had to use a special stylus, awkward at a helm. A UMPC is a 7” tablet PC on whose touch screen a finger works just fine. Add a USB or Bluetooth GPS, or a whole electronics network connected via WiFi, plus a bracket, and this puppy might make a very nice navigator. (I suspect it might be particularly competitive against the dedicated car navigators). Of course it can do a whole lot more, and it’s supposed to price below $1,000, but some folks are skeptical.
As noted yesterday, the owner/designer of the dual PC helm setup has found a nifty HID (Human Interface Device) that I’d never seen before (bigger here, and set up for Coastal Explorer). The X-keys Stick USB includes software (Mac version too) that lets you define macros and print out key labels, even white on black ones to best utilize the Stick’s backlighting. It is not waterproof, of course, but it sure looks like it would be useful in a pilot house when the going gets jiggy, or you just have other things to do with your hands. The 16 key version shown cost $80, and the company has all sorts of other programmable key boards.
This is the pilot house of a Nordic Tug 37 belonging to a Panbo reader in the state of Washington. It’s his very first boat! But he did spent an unusual amount of time learning navigation and analyzing all his electronics choices. It was the “locked-in” nature of dedicated electronics versus the flexibility of computers that ultimately drove his decision, plus a high comfort level with PCs. He did not, however, put all his eggs in one basket. Two matching Shuttle XPC computers (Athlon, for lower heat/power) drive the two 20” Viewsonic monitors, and all NMEA 0183 inputs/outputs are split and switched so that the chart table PC can do everything the helm PC can, and vice versa. Dual Raymarine active GPS antennas each split to one of the Standard Horizon GX3500 DSC VHFs and one of the Shuttles. (And, yes, I do think that NMEA 2000 could make most of this small data networking far simpler and more robust).
At any rate, besides being quite the contrast to yesterday’s helm, the photo above (bigger here) shows normal operating mode, with Nobeltec Admiral on radar duty to port, and Coastal Explorer at the helm as primary plotter. The owner seems to have mixed feelings about both packages, favoring CE a bit for its interface, "familiar, modern and easy to use". Apparently there’s a chance that CE will one day support the Nobeltec/Koden radar scanner that’s plugged into his Ethernet hub, but no guarantee. The boat also tracks AIS targets (with a SeaLinks receiver), which the owner says they “really, really like” in Puget Sound. Check out the key strips on both monitors; more on those tomorrow.
“In the foreground is a Furuno 1731MKIII radar, then behind it is a Garmin GPS162 usually left in a large map view, then there is the primary Simrad CP32 GPS which is left in a data display mode. The Simrad drives the next instrument, a Robertson AP22 autopilot. Then behind the nice Hynautic engine controls is a Dell Latitude laptop running Nobletec's Visual Navigator. Up above from left to right is the FM radio, weather telex and stabilizer controls (all out of the photo), then a B&G wind indicator, a B&G depth and speed indicator, then an Icom M-127 VHF radio which we used constantly, and finally an ICOM M-710RT SSB radio which when used causes the boat's autopilot to initiate a turn!” This is from a well-done blog I came across. Here the author is documenting an enjoyable 2003 trip down the ICW as mate aboard a friend’s 1999 Krogen 39. But there’s also a nautical sad side to the blog, which is when the author’s whole family flies to Fort Lauderdale for the dream cruise aboard their Nordhavn 46 (shipped ahead), goes out 4 miles into the Gulf Stream, then comes back to Florida, gives away all the provisions and puts the boat on the market! He’s not specific about what exactly went wrong, but this sort of thing happens more than many of us would imagine, and hats off to a guy who doesn’t try to hide it.
Check this out (big size
)! It’s the most elaborate test setup a manufacturer ever loaned me, and I learned a lot from it. What you’re looking at is a LowranceNet (aka NMEA 2000) network suitable for, say, a spiffy T-top fishing boat. On top are the sensors: GPS, fuel flow, 3 tank levels, water speed, and 2 water temps. On the bottom are 4 digital gauges capable of showing most any data on the network, plus the LCX 111c HD (hard drive!) fishfinder/plotter, which can also display gauge type data. It all works together quite nicely, and in Miami I got a ride on an actual T-top equipped with all this gear plus a pair of NMEA-2000–talking Evinrude Etec outboards. I saw smooth data integration across the network, with flexible and redundant displays. Oh, there’s a kink or two, which I’ll write about later, but today I want to address my earlier concerns about LowranceNet. If you recall, most of the gear above is NMEA certified but the backbone plugs and cabling are not. Back in Oct. I understood there’d be some resolution to this issue, but so far…nothing. However, I’ve been told by a Lowrance engineer that this cable, though much smaller and less expensive, meets the same specs for shielding, etc. as the certified stuff I tried last summer. Some of which I’m still holding on to (thank you, Raymarine and Maretron). That’s why I was able to try a simple patch cable (above at left) to connect a regular NMEA 2000 device to the LowranceNet backbone. I was even able to marry the Lowrance backbone to the certified backbone with various Maretron units and an E120 hanging off it. Everything powered up and was relatively happy. I do hope Lowrance can get its cable fully legit, but if it works fine—and it seems to—does it really matter?
This is the gorgeous new schooner Maggie B. out on sea trails off Nova Scotia last weekend. I believe that big mallet is for busting ice off the rigging! Now, notice to the left the 10” Furuno NavNet vx2 on a cloth-covered extension arm. This is an almost all Furuno boat, including autopilot and an integrated computer running MaxSea. I helped the owner a bit to sort through all the possibilities before he settled on this system, which I look forward to trying some day. I am willing, however, to wait for warmer conditions.
Whereas some of you greedy tech heads saw the world’s first VHF/chart plotter and wanted it to be an AIS transponder too, Standard Horizon wants you to know that the CPV350 can at least display AIS targets when hooked up to a receiver, as illustrated by the menus above. In fact, Standard says they have the technology to include an AIS receiver inside the CPV, but wanted to keep the cost down. Last week I also noted how Raymarine demoed its new AIS abilities in Miami, which I think will really help to make boaters aware of the technology. I didn’t get a good picture, but here’s a screen shot (bigger here ).
I’ve done a lot of boating around the port of Miami over the last two weeks, and, wow, there’s just no end of interesting scenes. Check this one out bigger ; notice how the tug skipper has his mast down and a guy on the bow checking his clearances. A little hairy under there! I wish I was still on the water, or posting on Panbo, but I’ve GOT to finish an article. (By the way, this picture was taken about where the dialog box is on the last entry’s screen shot).
Generally I’m pretty good about sticking to marine electronics, but today I’m going slightly off topic. For one thing I’m looking for a new cell phone and service contract, and I’m betting Panbo readers may have some helpful opinions. I’m thinking of dropping my venerable Nokia 5165 with AT&T analog and TDMA service in favor of Cingular GSM and a HST Wizard, aka the 8125 above. It’s a 
