Electronics and Navigation

Tacktick’s new solar-powered waterproof Race Master System is packed with useful features, including an electronic compass, a speed log, and a depthsounder, and can be wirelessly networked with other Tacktick instruments to display wind speed, wind direction, windshift averaging, and mean-wind-direction data. In addition, it can connect to your boat’s NMEA interface to display GPS data. The kit’s

Wireless is all the rage on boats these days, as exemplified by the advent of handheld multifunction controllers. Simrad’s RemoteCommander is a prime example. Not only does it let you control your NMEA 2000–compatible autopilot, chartplotter, and other instruments from anywhere on the boat via Bluetooth, it is also a VHF handset. Simrad USA, 425-778-8821,

Few things are as discouraging as coming on board your boat, only to find a dead battery. Microlog has created two new affordable battery-monitoring systems, the DMM-3-BR (for two batteries) and DMM-4-BR (for three batteries). The monitors protect your batteries against deep discharges, provide accurate measurements of two and three-battery banks, and measure system charge, discharge, and net

These are the two words that no skipper wants to hear, but with the new MOBi-lert 720i system she will quickly know if someone unexpectedly exits stage left (or starboard). Each crewmember carries a small MOBi-ilert PTX unit, which sends a constant signal to the system’s monitoring unit. If one of the PTX units is submerged, the transmission is broken and an onboard alarm is automatically

If you want to harness the full power of your yacht’s flat-screen TV, high-end stereo, theater-area lighting and more, you can do it with Remote Technologies’s T4 Universal Controller. The touch-panel device features an integrated 802.11 WiFi card, onboard speakers, and a 6.4-inch LCD display with full VGA resolution, allowing this handheld to display video windows and web pages. This stand-alone

Clearly seeing objects at night and keeping a watchful eye on your yacht are objectives that any owner seeks, especially if these can be accomplished from anywhere. Night Vision Technologies’s 6000 series multiple-sensor vision system boasts a thermal imager, a high-resolution 312X zoom color camera, and an ultra-low-lux camera for crisp diurnal or nocturnal viewing. The unit also features a

That in-the-red VSWR, reading on the ART-3 tester confirmed my suspicion that while the old VHF antenna attached looks okay, it must be fried internally. VSWR stands for “voltage standing wave ratio,” but Shakespeare reasonably calls it “antenna efficiency.” The ART-3 can also test transmission wattage (only 17 with this particular antenna, but a full 25 with a decent one) and can generate a tone

Port Networks’s approach to maximized marine WiFi is to minimize coaxial loss by packing a high-powered radio and 5.5-dB antenna into a waterproof box for deployment on deck whenever you’re docked or moored. Both power and signal run through a no-loss 25-foot Ethernet cable. While the $349 MWB-200 will usually find the best available WiFi signal automatically, complete control software is

This is one tough tiny camera. I dunked it into Boston Harbor, even photographed the muck, rinsed it under the tap, and it’s still snapping photos. Olympus’s Stylus 720 SW is shockproof, has a 3X zoom lens, and takes digital photos as large as 7.1 megapixels. Moreover, it offers 28 shooting modes, ranging from standards like “portrait” to more-esoteric operations like shooting “through glass.”

Pocket Navigator’s latest 5.0 release can run on “Smartphones”— cellphones using the Windows Mobile operating system. The test unit worked nicely with a Bluetooth wireless GPS, its 1-gigabyte memory card offered ample raster-chart storage, and the keypad-driven interface was good enough for backup plotting. But what’s really impressive is how the Pocket Navigator easily fetches and overlays NOAA