Marine Electronics

Benjamin Franklin is credited with the quote “the weatherwise and the otherwise.” It remains savvy advice for all sailors, and thanks to modern oceanographic...

Solar power has become ubiquitous on sailboats, first on cruising boats, but now even on sport boats, where a small solar panel is the...

Before diving into the topic of responsible boating, we’re required to say something about global warming and carbon. Primordial carbon was sequestered by several...

If you are familiar with how coaches, parents, and kids coordinate details of their team sports with each other through software, you may have...

During a recent delivery from Punta Gorda, FL to St. Augustine, FL I had the opportunity to compare two routing apps, one of them...

Last month, in part one of  this report on portable weather routing options, I described why I selected Iridium Go to help guide my...

As a USCG Master who does offshore deliveries, I rely on accurate and current weather forecasts. After exploring several options, I finally settled on...

Over the years Practical Sailor has done many articles analyzing VHF radios, chart plotters, etc. This article will discuss how to get various brands of electronics that use different communication protocols to work together seamlessly. It is proven to work on my 39-year-old personal boat and parts of this process has been used on boats I have delivered for my customers.

The NMEA 0183 has two different communication (baud) rates for-4800 baud and the faster 38400 baud (also known as NMEA 0183-HS). You have to match the baud rate of both devices for communication to occur. AIS will always use the faster rate. Once the speeds correlated on our test boat, the radio presented targets on its one-inch display. Sitting at the dock it was apparent that info below decks was useless.

Although wireless systems have gradually made their way aboard modern cruising boats, hard-wiring remains an essential part of most systems, especially when you are matching old and new gear, or using converters. One of the biggest challenge for those of us with terrible fine motor skills is dealing with the tiny wires. Stripping, splicing and connecting these wires isn't neurosurgery, but definitely not the sort of thing you want to deal with on a rocking boat. But like any installation, it is a job you want to get done the first time-especially when you consider the challenges of troubleshooting electronics faults.