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Mobile phone confusion !

By Russ, on July 6th, 2008

My little venture into experimenting with mobile phones and their use on my boat has stirred up a lot of readers of this blog it appears see comments here

Questions include:

- Can I use my smartphone to connect my laptop to the internet?
- Can I use my phone as a chart plotter?
- Which software and maps can I use on my phone?
- How can I improve the interface on my phone? – I cant get to the Bluetooth and other settings easily because they buried under so many menu options…
- Can I get the Met Office weather forecast and barometric charts on my phone?

I had not realised that so many of you are as frustrated as I am in getting more out of my expensive smartphone when they seem to promise so much….

Just to make one point absolutely clear I am referring to the latest crop of smartphones “not the common or garden phones” – and I dont care if you have 3G, MP3, or any other acronym – I mean a phone that is running a real mini operating system such as Windows Mobile 6 or Symbian.

As a result of all this interest I have decide to create a whole new section dedicated to mobile phone use on boats – look across the tabs at the top of the page….and you will see a tab called “Phones”.

I have only just started, but please – come back and check because I will be trying to answer the questions raised as best as I can on this new section.

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July 6th, 2008| 2 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - - - .

2 comments to Mobile phone confusion !

  • Jeffrey Siegel
    6 July, 2008 at 1:32 pm · Reply

    There is a multi-part series on madmariner.com that my wife and I are writing about using a smartphone on a boat. It covers the terminology, amplification, navigation, weather, tides/currents, other applications, and discussions of the various platforms. July 7th will release the 4th article on weather applications and web sites appropriate for phone use.

  • russa
    7 July, 2008 at 7:57 pm · Reply

    Thanks Jeff – that really sounds comprehensive!

    I would be happy to stand corrected based on your experience.

    Rgds
    Russ

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GPS Terminology – nanu nanu :-)

By Russ, on June 16th, 2008

After the last post I had a few emails asking me what PRN 32 means so I thought I would list a few terms that you may come across if you start looking into the GPS system..

SV – Space Vehicle
PRN – Pseudo Random Noise
NANU – Notice Advisory to Navstar Users – there is a free mail list service run by the US Coast Guard to send GPS watchers an automatic status report.

For the latest nanus see the US Coast guard site here.

BTW its called Navstar because that is the correct title of the US military GPS system

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June 16th, 2008| No comments - be the first!|Tags: - - - - .

GPS – New Satellite SOG Errors?

By Russ, on June 16th, 2008

There has been some discussion recently about the new satellite PRN32 or at least an old satellite that has been recommissioned and brought into the GPS system.

It appears that some people are claiming that their GPS receivers software has been coded to count the number of satellites it can detect as 31 whereas there are now 32 satellites – I think this is a misunderstanding …I may be wrong!

It is common practice for programmers to count from 0 to 31 (ie.32) or from 1 to 32 (ie 32) when setting registers or creating arrays to handle data. I am pretty sure that however old your GPS is it can “see” 32 satellites.

There may be an unrelated error on some units eg. the Northstar 941X which started reporting SOG readings of 800 knots – not good! If you are getting strange SOG or COG readings check your supplier for a firmware upgrade – Northstar are offering a fix for their units at http://www.northstarnav.com/en/Downloads/Software-Updates/

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June 16th, 2008| One comment so far - be the next!|Tags: - - - .

Garmin Mobile XT & Bluechart Marine Charts on a phone?

By Russ, on June 2nd, 2008

Mobile XTI wrote about Mobile XT previously. My comment was not that you couldn’t get chartplotting software on a smartphone, because patently you can – the comment I made was that you couldn’t get Bluechart marine charts to be read by Garmin Mobile XT on a smartphone. After making that post Bob left a comment that he had managed to get his Garmin Mobile XT to read Bluechart charts on his phone – even though this feature was not documented!…

Just to recap,Mobile XT is Garmin’s new GPS app that will be used in the expected Mobile 10/GPS 10X and Mobile 20/GPS 20SM products.

Garmin will also be releasing Mobile XT as an update for the ageing “Que” Pocket PC software that is included with the GPS 10 Bluetooth Receiver package.

Mobile XT is a newer version of the “Que Nav” application that comes with the iQue M3 and iQue M4 Pocket PC devices.

The software is sold on microSD cards that you insert into a smartphone which has built in GPS – you can of course use a miniSD or standardSD converter to house the card if necessary, for example in a PDA.

If your smartphone also has GPRS (data service) then the software will access “Garmin Online”. This gives access to a wide range of services such as traffic, weather, hotel rates and more. It give real-time traffic information from traffic.com about traffic tie-ups and road construction that lie ahead on your route. Hotel rates, ratings and availability information comes from hotels.com. There is a good article here about the use of XT on a smartphone

So all the elements are there for using your smartphone as a handheld marine chart plotter on board your boat, and saving yourself £200 to £300 for a dedicated marine plotter.

… I haven’t tested this theory, but now I am sorely tempted, having just changed phone to the Samsung i780 that has built in GPS…but then there is Active Captain too …

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June 2nd, 2008| 10 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - - .

Pathaway Chartplotter for Windows Mobile 6

By Russ, on March 31st, 2008

We are used to seeing a number of dedicated handheld chartplotter units like the Garmin 76CS and Raymarine RC400 both of which I have been using for the past 4 years. You may also know that Raymarine have now ducked out of the market for some reason. But getting reliable marine chartplotter software for the Windows mobile platform is rather more difficult.

MuskokaTech is a company that creates software applications for mobile devices – in particular GPS and plotting software.

Fugawi The Pathaway software from Muskoka is quite an exception . The “Standard” version is very capable and has the ability to “import your charts” …I haven’t tested this but will try to find out a bit more…but sounds very interesting and saves money if you have already got your Bluechart or Navionics charts.

It definitely imports the maps from Fugawi Global Navigator or Fugawi Marine ENC.

PathAway supports a wide variety of digital maps including the Fugawi World Digital Map Collection, many third party maps or even user scanned paper maps. Maps are highly compressed and can be any size and resolution that fits within your device memory.

Waypoints, routes and tracks can also be transferred between Fugawi Global Navigator or Fugawi Marine ENC and PathAway.

The Pathaway “Pro” version has some interesting “beta features” such as 2-way wireless remote location tracking. See where others are right from your handheld, share your location with others, or send to a central tracking service – now that would be cool for boats traveling in a flotilla on on the club regatta ! …And all without installing and AIS transmitter !

How about this software combined with the tiny HTC7510..mentioned here – now that could be a great combination!

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March 31st, 2008| 3 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - - .
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