By Russ, on October 26th, 2006
I wanted to use the Raymarine C120 as the primary means of electronic chartplotting while on board – it is interfaced to all the instruments as well as the the DSC radio, radar, and AIS.
But while onshore, at home, at anchor or in a marina it is often more convenient to use a laptop. It is now so easy to download grib files, look up weather forecasts, email, browse the web, and forums and so on.
I thought I would use the laptop for two main additional purposes.
a) Chartplotting using the software I already had before
…….Click Laptop on board …. to continue reading
By Russ, on October 26th, 2006
Well it seemed like a good idea to get an SSB instead of the dedicated Navtex displays that are on the market…there isn’t much price difference and with an SSB you can receive Weather fax, RTTY and Navtex transmissions anywhere in the world and all for free – no subscriptions required!
This is the SSB that I installed it is the NASA Target HF3M SSB with dedicated antenna and the audio PC cable to interface with the laptop’s soundcard.
This does cover the spectrum from 30Khz to 30Mhz – so you can
…….Click SSB On board …. to continue reading
By Russ, on October 26th, 2006
I decided that I would use an RC400 handheld in the cockpit since it would:
a) take less room than any of the smallest C series Raymarine displays
b) Cost a quarter of the price
c) Use Navionics GOLD charts – the same as the C120 chartplotter at the nav table
d) be able to receive and transmit waypoints and tracks using NMEA (or so I hoped)
e) Not be so large or bright that it would interfere with night vision
f) could run off the ships power circuit – saving batteries and the ‘crash’ events that happen when the battery power runs low…(another post
…….Click Fitting the RC400 …. to continue reading
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