Electronics and Navigation

The featherweight Icom M-24 VHF is an affordable, no-frills non-DSC handheld radio with a nifty “float and flash” feature that causes a red LED to start flashing as soon as it hits the water—even when it’s turned off. In addition to making the radio easier to recover, this can help draw attention to a person who has fallen overboard. In fact, the unit’s light weight and small size make it a

Say “link” to a cruising sailor today and anchor chain is probably not what comes to mind. Reliable Internet access has become a Holy Grail for most cruisers. We are so anxious to be connected that Wi-Fi hotspots now trump most other harbor attractions.Virtually all new laptop computers have wireless capability, but their range is limited by their antennas and the power of the internal

Perhaps you like to plan your passages when you’re away from your boat. Maybe you spend a lot of time sailing on other people’s boats. Maybe you just like to take your nav gear home at the end of the day, or you like having a backup in a bag. Whatever the reason, there’s a lot to be said for being able to tote along your own tried and proven gear.My own experiences on any number of

Perhaps you like to plan your passages when you’re away from your boat. Maybe you spend a lot of time sailing on other people’s boats. Maybe you just like to take your nav gear home at the end of the day, or you like having a backup in a bag. Whatever the reason, there’s a lot to be said for being able to tote along your own tried and proven gear.My own experiences on any number of

The Iridium system has gotten more robust and now has 66 low-earth-orbit satellites arrayed in a constellation that delivers Arctic-to-Antarctic coverage. One big advantage of this system is that the company has recently decided to transition to a 2015 upgrade called “IridumNEXT” that will be backward compatible. The new satellites and software will allow current sat-phones to remain fully

KVH has been a long-term industry leader in antenna stabilization and satellite communication. Its latest V3 satellite phone delivers crisp voice calls, competitive data rates and faster connections. The cost per minute is now at a price point that will appeal to more than the megayacht crowd.The new V3 phone utilizes a stabilized antenna and a belowdecks-mounted controller/modem. The

GHS 20 and GHS 20i full-function wireless remote handsets are compatible with Garmin’s VHF 200 and 300 series radios. They allow you to move about your boat and still have complete control of your radio. Each waterproof handset includes a backlit LCD display, soft keys, volume control, squelch and channel selection, a built-in speaker mike for use in loud environments, a DSC distress function,

Brian Naznitsky of Kings Park, New York, asks:”I recently purchased a depthsounder and want to mount its transducer inside the hull of my boat. The manufacturer recommends I flood my bilge and move the transducer to different positions, temporarily holding it in place with a bag filled with sand, until I find the best spot to permanently mount it. Filling the very slack

T300 and T400 series thermal navigation cameras employ FLIR thermal-imaging technology and can be used with Raymarine’s E-Series Widescreen and G-Series navigation systems to pick out obstructions,, buoys and other boats in complete darkness. When integrated with the E-Series system, users can control the cameras via Raymarine’s proprietary HybridTouch touchscreen feature. The cameras can be

On long passages it’s good to know how much fresh water, gray water, waste, oil, and fuel you have in your tanks. Offshore Systems’s digital MultiTank Level Display allows you to monitor any four of your boat’s tanks on one easy-to-read screen via an NMEA 2000 network. You can choose to have the information displayed as bar graphs, analog gauges, or raw numbers. Alarms can be set for low and high