Monthly Archive: March 2007

AIS Class B, messages & data fields 11

AIS Class B, messages & data fields

Geez, this morning I found myself confused about Class B AIS details touched on yesterday, and realized that my sources are somewhat sketchy. The USCG AIS site is pretty informative generally, but its Class B particulars seem suspect, the...

Yipe, crossing the Channel with AIS 24

Yipe, crossing the Channel with AIS

Ever wonder why the U.K. and Western Europe are such AIS hot beds? John C. send in this shot of his zoomed out screen, taken as he sailed across the English Channel yesterday: I was heading northwest...

Garmin, a juggernaut? 3

Garmin, a juggernaut?

Garmin is making waves beyond its smart seeming autopilot acquisition today. For one thing, a bit of evidence in the incident involving the 15 British Royal Navy detained by Iran is the clever helicopter photo above, in...

Garmin buys Nautamatic, sweeeeet! 4

Garmin buys Nautamatic, sweeeeet!

Moments ago Garmin announced that it has acquired Nautamatic Marine Systems, the inventors and manufacturers of what’s arguably the most innovative autopilot system out there. When I first profiled the TR-1 Gladiator in a...

SeaKey v2, seems a lot better 4

SeaKey v2, seems a lot better

I had a hard time getting enthused about the original SeaKey (explained here, with humor, by good ole Bill Pike), because its communications link seemed pretty flaky. SeaKey v2 is a major upgrade from...

BGAN, beginning on boats? 0

BGAN, beginning on boats?

Well, Inmarsat’s 2004 projections on the size and timing of marine BGAN may have been a bit optimistic, but the fourth generation birds are in place and the service appears to getting more and more mobile, like this ruggedized...

MarineBiz TV, from Dubai of course 0

MarineBiz TV, from Dubai of course

I know I’m beyond the W.Weirdness window, but maybe you need a Monday distraction? Check out brand new MarineBiz online TV. There are lots of curious clips available but search on “Operation Training” and skip...

Magellan Crossover, 0

Magellan Crossover,

Magellan has not been doing much in the North American marine market recently, and actually this new CrossoverGPS comes loaded with street maps and topos, but you need to purchase pretty pricey chart SD cards to...