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PMY Electronics Editor:
Based out of the U.K., Tim has a lifetime of experience running and writing about boats. For more than ten years, he served as the technical editor of Motor Boat and Yachting—the UK’s leading powerboat magazine. Since leaving that position in 1997, he has penned articles for various boating publications, including Power & Motoryacht’s sister magazine, SAIL Magazine. Read more here...
Make A Call, Save Some Cash
By Tim Bartlett | Posted January 2010 | Add a CommentOnboard satcom is now cheaper than cellphone service. Did you know that it is now cheaper to phone home from the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands through a shipboard satellite terminal than it is through a cellphone?Verizon, for instance, charges $1.99 per minute for calls from the Caribbean to the United
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Avoiding Disaster
By Tim Bartlett | Posted January 2010 | Add a CommentTrue Motion displays like this one have come down from the big-ship world. For collision avoidance, switch to the unit’s relative-motion mode.One foggy May morning, a few years ago, a 900-foot container ship heading westwards at 25 knots collided with a 40-foot yacht called Wahkuna, which until a few minutes before the collision,
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Looking Ahead
By Tim Bartlett | Posted November 2009 | Add a CommentThe Interphase IScan V90 is vertical-scanning look-ahead sonar, made in the USA. ($2,388) www.interphase-tech.com.Whenever and wherever we go offshore, it's a fair bet that the closest
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Upgrade or Download?
By Tim Bartlett | Posted October 2009 | Add a CommentIt’s always nice to buy presents for the one you love—even if it is difficult, sometimes, to persuade your wife that the boat needs a new plotter more than she needs that designer purse.But maybe you figure that now isn’t the best time to be spending big money on electronics upgrades. Well, the good news is that you can often significantly improve your
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Apollo II HD and Standard Horizon’s Plotter/Fishfinders
By Tim Bartlett | Posted August 2009 | Add a CommentApollo II HDOceanView Technologies has added a new dual-sensor camera to its line-up of night-vision systems.As the name suggests, the Apollo II HD is a high-definition version of the company’s popular Apollo II. Like the Apollo II, the HD combines a thermal-imaging camera with a highly sensitive low-light camera that is capable of
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Dialing In
By Tim Bartlett | Posted August 2009 | Add a CommentModern radars like this Raymarine C120 may hide their manual set-up controls behind menus and soft keys, but they are still worth looking for.If I ever happen to get the chance to play with someone else’s radar, I almost always set myself a challenge: can I get a better picture using manual adjustments than the radar’s automatic
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Iridium Openport
By Tim Bartlett | Posted July 2009 | Add a CommentAfter conducting extensive beta-testing that included sending five terminals around the world in boats competing in the Vendee Globe single-handed sailboat race, Iridium has launched the world’s only global broadband service. Called OpenPort, the new service provides three independent phone lines and an Internet connection at anything up to 128 kilobytes
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GPS Ailing and Failing?
By Tim Bartlett | Posted July 2009 | Add a CommentGarmin Colorado 400C still better than a sextant even if the GPS is getting old ($599.99 MSRP; www.garmin.com)There is growing concern that GPS performance may soon start to degrade, as the Air Force struggles to keep its constellation of aging satellites in operation.It’s been more than 30 years since
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A Fatal Error
By Tim Bartlett | Posted July 2009 | Add a CommentPhoto by USCGThe ill-fated fishing vessel Lady Mary, docked at her home port of Cape May, New Jersey, before the incident.EPIRB manufacturers around the world are urging owners to make sure their distress beacons are properly registered. The warning follows the loss of the scallop dredger
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Intellian D-Series
By Tim Bartlett | Posted June 2009 | Add a CommentWhen DirecTV announced earlier this year that all of its high-definition programming would be broadcast from its Ka-band satellites only, boaters who wanted to receive it and DirecTV’s standard-definition programming (broadcast on the Ku band) had to buy an expensive, complex dual-antenna system. No more. Intellian has unveiled its new
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