Marine Electronics

ITT still leads the pack in our book, but there are other viable and less costly units for night ops.

Alongshore, you're good to go with a VHF plus Net-ready cell phone. Offshore, keep the SSB, and for heavier use include an Inmarsat system or sat phone.

Looking for a way to stick with the simplicity and reliability of charts, but still get the rewards of GPS and automatic trigonometry? Consider ye olde Yeoman.

The Icom IC-M1V takes top performance honors. Standard Horizon's HX350S is a Best Buy, and there are several honorable mentions.

Here's a letter and response we were going to run in Mailport this month, but we'll run it in this space instead: ----------As I...

In the course of running the scientific evaluation of the Tri-Lens radar reflector featured in Practical Sailor's August 15, 2001 issue, Dick Honey, former senior principal scientist at SRI, sent us the following thoughts on the nature of radar reflection and detection at sea.

The Motorola TalkAbout takes the top spot among seven sets of these close-range alternatives to VHF radios and cell phones.

Yes, it's again time to look at handheld GPS receivers, which have now officially become a consumer commodity. Sales of receivers to hikers,...

It's powerful, quiet, renewable, and sometimes even free. It doesn't pollute. How severe are the drawbacks? That depends on several of your thresholds.

West Marine's site has been carefully developed and tended for years, and it shows, across the board. The BoatU.S. site is also well-polished.