Winter Plans

Bill will be sailing Visions down to Newport on Monday where she will be staying for the winter again. This time she will have my full time company as I will be living aboard. Besides a nice place to stay and savings of rent and utilities, this will allow me to get a fair amount of projects done.

First will be to install a WiFi system. I have already purchased a Port Networks WMB-250 through Alan Spicer Marine Telcom who has been very helpful in specifying a coherent system for Visions as well as Volare', a 76' Humphries Sailboat which is captained by my friend Shane Vowels who I have been helping with his computer and network upgrades. I will certainly update all once the install is underway.

Other winter projects include preparations for install of an AIS B unit which are finally approved by FCC and went on sale in the US this week. Final install probably won't happen till the boat gets hauled and rig gets pulled in the spring as we want to put the antenna on the masthead for best range. This does bring up some interesting delemas including too many antennas. Discussions of Panbo have gone wild with regard to a "magic" flat panel antenna that may prove to be the answer to our dreams with the ability to combine multiple antennas, but technical data is sparce and Ben won't get to testing a working unit till next week. I may end up with a temporary wifi install for a few weeks till the antenna question gets answered.

We are also looking into the Iridium OpenPort satphone system as a possible addition to Visions as data costs become very competitive when looking at a per MB cost. Time will tell as real world pricing becomes available. This and an eventual install of a dive compressor top our winter lists. I should also finally have the time to compile my NMEA rebuild information and finally post that long promised info for others reference.

Last thing....I got version 1.0.4A of iNavX last night with the addition of a scale % dialog on chart rendering. A nice improvement that at least gives you a clue as to where you are. Rich is looking at my suggestion below, but isn't sure if he can do it within the programming language of the iPhone in a reasonable way.