The advances in marine and boat electronics systems over the last 25 years have been nothing short of spectacular with the world of marine communications and navigation destined to a total reliance on satellites.
The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) service is fully operational. The European Galileo global navigation system (GNSS) went fully operational in 2016 and is more accurate than GPS. Advances in electronics and software and mass production have seen prices plummet to consumer electronics items. The boat GPS has been a game changer. The boat autopilot has become smarter than ever. Instrumentation has been transformed as processing power and software advances have increased reliability and accuracy. The boat speed log and the boat wind instruments have become integrated into multi function boat instruments systems. Even the entertainment has changed with the boat stereo undergoing a transformation.
The weather forecasts are available through NAVTEX in many areas. INMARSAT has most commercial and large pleasure vessels equipped with satellite communications, IRIDIUM and other systems offer satellite communications options. The advances in smart phone technology and a multitude of phone apps means anyone within range of a cell tower can get information, and as 4G transitions to 5G the speed of communications will only improve.
Boat electronics seems to be an ever expanding field. Boat instrumentation including boat radar, fishfinders and boat chartplotters are now running on networks. Now fiber-optics are used, as well as big leaps in computing power enable the operation of split screen radar and chart plotters on multi-function touch screen displays.
All of these new boat electronics systems and useful information to using them are explained in this website along with my books for sailing and motor boats. Looking for my book and equipment?
Modern marine and boat electronics are now relatively cheap and reliable. The one inherent danger of course is that many boaters are sailing away without the basic knowledge to maintain the boat electronics equipment, understand how to use boat electronics correctly, and worse still without the skills to cope when the boat electronics systems do fail. Want some answers to problems, then check out the marine electronics forum and get some good information.
Boat electronics instrumentation including radar, fishfinders and plotters are now running on networks, and fiber-optics are used, as well as leaps in computing power enable the operation of split screen radar and chart plotters on multi-function touch screen displays.
All of these new systems and useful information to using them are explained in this website along with my books for sailing and motor boats. Looking for my book and equipment?
Modern marine and boat electronics are now very cheap and reliable. The one inherent danger of course is that many boaters are sailing away without the basic knowledge to maintain the equipment, understand how to use it properly, and worse still without the skills to cope when the systems do fail. Boat electronics need not be mystifying.