Article by Capt. Steve Katz
Spring Tune up
Welcome to the 2020 season of “Ship to Shore”. I am excited to be working with the new team at the Coastal Fisherman and looking forward to a great season.
The winter and spring in the Mid-Atlantic season not only inspires us to dream about warm water and good fishing, the “offseason” also inspires the manufacturers of marine electronics to develop new equipment and software for us to dream about. Fall and winter boat show season is where marine manufactures often debut new products, with much publicity focused on marine electronics, though lighting and automation have become highly publicized too. If you didn’t get to any of these boat shows, here is a recap of this winters newly introduced products.
While the awards at the shows above are popular within the trade, the manufacturers spend their R&D and advertising funds to gain consumer awareness and loyalty by exhibiting and promoting their products at Winter boat shows, such as Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. Some of the new products introduced so far in 2020 are:
-Furuno TZT3 NavNet multifunction displays
- Garmin EchoMap UHD series and GPSMAP Plus series
- Lowrance Hook Reveal fishfinders/chartplotters
- Simrad NSO evo3S Glass Bridge displays
- Standard Horizon compact handheld VHF HX890
- Lowrance GOST trolling motor
- Fusion RA210 & RA670 audio system
- ICOM M803 SSB Single Side Band radio with HAM frequencies
- ACR Electronics ResQLink 400 Personal Locator Beacon
- SiriusXM Satellite Fish Mapping
- FLIR M300 series marine cameras
- Vesper Cortex VHF/AIS/Monitor System
The annual National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) Conference conducts a product award competition, where members of the Marine Electronics industry vote on new or recently introduced products, here are the Fall 2019 winners
- Marine VHF—ICOM M605
- Satellite TV Antenna—KVH TracVision TV3
- Radar—Furuno DRS4DNXT
- Fishfinder—Furuno DFF3D Multi-Beam 3D
- Satellite Comm. Antenna—KVH TracPhone V3HTS
- Marine Camera—FLIR M400XR
- Multi-Function Display—Garmin GPSMAP 8616xsv
- IS—Furuno FA170 Class A
- Multimedia Entertainment—Fusion Apollo RA770
- Autopilot—Garmin Reactor 40 with SmartPump v2
- NMEA 2000 Sensor—Furuno SC33 Satellite Compass
- Remote Monitoring -GOST Apparition SM GPS XVR
- Marine PC Software—Nobeltec TZ Professional
- WiFi/Cellular Device—KVH TracPhone LTE-1
- Marine Apps-Utility—Garmin ActiveCaptain
- Commercial Radar—Furuno FAR2228BB IMO Radar
• NMEA Best New Product
Award goes to Vesper Marine
Cortex
• NMEA Technology Award
goes to Raymarine/FLIR Clear
Cruise AR
• NMEA Manufacturer of the
Year goes to Garmin
With quite an extensive list, it is hard to determine if there is something new that has a feature or function you would like to have. The best way to learn is to talk to dealers, friends or the manufacturer directly about their product and learn what they have to offer. With this spring’s Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase of on-line webinars and videos developed by the marine electronics manufacturers, showcasing and teaching about their products. Even if you missed a scheduled event, many of these are recorded and you can watch anytime. Just last week Garmin conducted a webinar about transducers – a very detailed event that was helpful to all.
If your budget doesn’t allow you to refit with new electronics and gadgets, not all is lost. Most manufacturers of the popular multifunction displays have released or close to release new software that can help your older system perform new tricks!
As an example- Furuno’s newest software for the TZT2, due out soon, will give you the look and feel of the newest TZT3 model for no cost. Garmin’s newest free software update will give you the ability to lock your multifunction display with a personalized PIN code, keeping others away from your valuable waypoints and data. Simrad’s upcoming software for their multifunction displays will add the ability to use the newest WM4 weather module and soon the SiriusXM Fish Mapping service.
While these software updates may seem simple, things can go wrong during the process. If you are unsure, it's best to contact a marine electronics professional that can take the responsibility and be sure that your unit will be properly updated without a loss of data or settings. The most important step before updating your software is to back up your waypoints and settings to a memory card or the cloud. While most multifunction displays make this easy, something as simple as having the wrong format or size of memory card for storing your data can cause the system not to back up your data. Software updates are often available on the manufacturer’s website. Downloading this data and installing it on a portable memory card can also be a stumbling point for many boaters. Thankfully, the manufacturers often provide detailed instructions on the entire process. Be sure to reserve a lot of time on a weekday that you are not going to need the unit – some updates can take hours. If there is a problem, you will want to call an electronics professional or the manufacturer. Support is often not available on the weekends or after hours. After the successful software update, be sure to tour the multifunction displays to review the new features to see what has changed, what is the same and be sure everything is working properly – or at least the critical pages and settings you use often.
Purchasing new electronics and accessories for your boat should be a rewarding process resulting in equipment or system that makes your boating and fishing trips more informative, efficient, productive and pleasurable.
