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• Commented on what does the 56 whr stand for on my battery?
  Whr = Watt Hours. How long 56 Watt Hours will last, depends on how many watts are consumed per hour. If you consume 11.2 Watts per hour at a given screen brightness and level of disk activity, then your laptop...
• Commented on Maretron WSO100, Mast & SeatalkNG
  Yes. As no drop line can be longer than 6 meters, it must be your intention to run the backbone up your mast. It is perfectly fine to put a T connector between the 10 meter and 2 meter length...
• Commented on A closer look at Lowrance's HDS Gen2 Touch
  Kees. Very well written, Thanks! In regards to the screen captures that follow Bigger is not always Better, the triangles in the first shot are ships while the five sided red boxes in the second shot are something else, current?...
• Commented on Garmin GMI 20 & GHC 20, back on top?
  Great link Norse....
• Commented on Garmin GMI 20 & GHC 20, back on top?
  1) I really like the green, its very eye pleasing. Why has everyone standardized on red? Was there a reason? Does the red preserve night vision better? Will green do just as well if the intensity is turned down vs...
• Commented on Has plotter evolution flatlined?
  A real standout to me is the new radars, all of which appeared here in Panbo. The Raymarine HD radar for example easily picks up all small fiberglass boats without fuss where as the prior generation of recreational radar would...
• Commented on Linking a VHF to a Chartplotter
  Sure Ben, the comment got all jumbled up for some reason (editor doesn't like [left arrow][dash][dash]?) and I didn't realize it. Changed it around and put numbers in front of each line, one for each wire. 1. VHF NMEA input...
• Commented on Verizon 4G WiFi hotspot, Novatel MiFi 4510L
  It's tough writing a negative review, time consuming, have to be extra careful, and alternatively it's much more rewarding writing about a product or service that I can get passionate about. Skip down to the last paragraph for some straight...
• Commented on Vessel Vanguard, world's largest boat systems database?
  More reasonable? Are you paying the advertised price on the web site, or is there another plan that fits your needs?...
• Commented on Linking a VHF to a Chartplotter
  What's been holding me back from commenting, is that I am not familiar with the idea of having a shared NMEA ground. Normally there is a "NMEA -" for each individual input and output, just like the VHF has. The...
• Commented on New member- NMEA 2K help !! :)
  No manual wiring and in addition you sound confident you swapped enough cabling parts to eliminate a cable or tee from being the problem. Contacting Garmin would be the next logical course of action. Please post what the result is,...
• Commented on New member- NMEA 2K help !! :)
  IMHO there is a chance it is a wiring problem, one of the two data wires inside the cable shorted. Do you have enough wires to substitute / troubleshoot that as a possible source? Maybe disconnect the GPS19 and use...
• Commented on New member- NMEA 2K help !! :)
  Not a lot of information here. Please list each component on your N2K backbone starting from the first terminator. Please explain how your backbone is powered....
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  I like what Johan wrote. He put it very elegantly. Always learning. And I am in different circles of people in 2005 vs. 2012 and gravitate towards using their definition. In 2005 I had just succeeded in passing a grueling...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  I forgot to add smiles as appropriate above. Please consider them added. Wow, what a find Ben....
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  1. What a really interesting find Ben. Apparently I was brain washed as I became a disciple of the Sailing Wind version of True Wind during my conversion to becoming an arrogant performance sailor (reference Johan). I wonder if it...
• Commented on The Equinox, celestial mechanics & pesky "True Wind"
  NoelC, I entirely disagree. I will make my statement below using the terms Ben layed out (e.g. Water Wind: what you feel on a drifting boat, often called True Wind by performance sailors, generally calculated by removing Speed Through Water...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  Johan, look at the manual again maybe? Ben has me fully believing the the PB200 was designed for that other true wind, relative to earth....
• Commented on The Equinox, celestial mechanics & pesky "True Wind"
  I follow the logic. Ground Wind = Wind Relative to Ground; Water Wind = Wind relative to Water. But, "Water wind", thats going to throw people who didn't read this entry. How about? TWrw = True Wind relative to water...
• Commented on The Equinox, celestial mechanics & pesky "True Wind"
  Your incorrect Dave and NoelC. Those of us who understand True Wind (relative to water) use it. Not just for racing, but for cruising also. Both Johan and I use the feature on our autopilots to steer to true wind...
• Commented on The Equinox, celestial mechanics & pesky "True Wind"
  Funny funny funny. Just spent the last three hours at a North Sails sail trim seminar where "True Wind" was uttered twice a minute. IMHO True, as in True Wind, is perfectly good terminology. There is the fake wind the...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  Johan what your wrote about using wind on the sailboat resonates with me (cool feature that the autopilot uses true wind also). Are you sharing this Ah Ha moment where Ben brought me, or are you still in the place...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  What Johan wrote resonates with me. To Ben's question: In addition to baseline, I pay attention to TWrw for sail trim controls (back stay positions, halyard tension, etc.) and also to decide if on my next tack I can stick...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  I will do better than give up. Yes I am stubborn and even pulled out the 2008 version of the Airmar manuals I remember. I found what I was looking for, but also came across a bunch of text on...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  Ah ... glad I asked !! You must think I am nuts. I will make the case that I am not crazy. The PB200 does take as input STW, and when I had the PB200 configured to output true wind...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  Yes, top features of the PB200. But as Airmar feared, when the sailboat goes up and down 4 foot waves, that didn't work out so well, so I turned off that part of the output and used only the wonderful...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  I don't recall that part of the PB200 feature set, and if its results would be any different from what I could expect from my Raymarine Chartplotter. At the time I decided to take the PB200 apparent wind output only...
• Commented on MIBS CZone tour, enabling the car-like boat
  I am curious about NMEA-2000 PGN standards for this, and if those standards extend to devices that are outside of the direct control of the digital circuits, say to products that draw power from the NMEA-2000 bus so that they...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  Small point. I do not believe, actually I am certain, the CS4500 is not more accurate than the paddlewheel, just more reliable in that it always works (sensor never dirty). The outcome is I get reliable STW readings, all 50...
• Commented on What wind instrument?
  To be more granular ... The part of my brain navigating wants to know the wind relative to ground in degrees magnetic (just like my ship compass & chart plotter ) and the part of my brain that wants to...