Article by Capt. Steve Katz
Tournament Tips
The next few weeks are an exciting time for anglers and crew fishing in the numerous local tournaments. Congratulations to all those who are participating, it takes a lot of effort to prepare for these events, let alone catch a winning fish! We wish all crew and anglers good luck in all the upcoming tournaments.
Here are a few tech tips that may be helpful in the coming weeks:
Tournament Time
While fishing crew may not wear a wristwatch while fishing, keeping track of the correct time is critical during a tournament. With so many electronic gadgets supplying the time, we expect the time we see to be correct and synchronized between all devices and the tournament organizers. A marine Chartplotter or GPS, as with most modern timekeeping devices, needs to be properly programmed to your location for the proper time zone and daylight savings time if applicable. Many of us on a boat have come to rely on the time on chartplotters for the proper “official” time.
The manufacturers of marine GPS receivers automate the device’s time settings, allowing the time to adjust automatically based on your GPS location, just like a smartphone. Seems like a clever idea, right?
Well, many of the devices may be too smart; they know when your boat moves into a different time zone or time of year and even when the boat has crossed the coastal 12-mile territorial waters of the USA.
Once beyond the 12-mile coastal limit, the Chartplotters often automatically eliminate daylight savings time en-route to the distant fishing grounds and then re-adjusts the time on the return trip to the dock at the 12-mile territorial water limit. If your system is not set-up with a manual time zone, your GPS clock, while offshore, could be an hour different from the official time back at the dock!
Most Garmin chartplotters can be adjusted to disable the time zone/daylight savings time feature in the system at: Settings >Preferences > Units> Time where you can adjust and the time format, time zone, and daylight saving time.
Tournament Turf
Most tournaments have a geographic boundary as part of their regulations, for instance, the White Marlin Open sets a 100-mile fishing limit as measured from the Ocean City MD sea buoy. With fast boats and a desire to fish less fished waters, many boats may run to distant spots, often close to the boundary. Many modern chartplotters allow you to set-up a boundary, this allows you to easily monitor your proximity to the range limit. For example, on popular Garmin GPSMAP unit’s you can create a boundary by selecting Info > User Data >Boundaries > New, then Select a boundary shape and follow the on-screen instructions. On the newest Furuno chartplotters, tap on the screen select “New Boundary” (Area, Circle or Line) to create your custom boundary. You can often set an alarm to show you how close you are and to notify you that you have entered these boundaries.
Tournament Togetherness
When the fishing is good in a particular spot, seems somehow “all” the boats run to and congregate in that “spot.” While professional Captain seamanship w is needed to fish in tight quarters, there are a few technical issues that can occur too:
Sonar - with the growing use of Omni style, 360 sonars and their long horizontal range there can be some overlap and interference. The popular Furuno Omni sonar’s operates at fixed frequency of 85 KHz.
With their high sensitivity it is easy to overlap coverage resulting in interference on your screen from other nearby 85Khz sonars. This does not often occur with traditional bottom sounders since their transmitting beam is vertical and stays within the footprint of your boat.
VHF radio-Most marine VHF radios have two output power settings, low and high, often 1 watt or 25 watts. The low power setting is good for communicating boats within a few miles. This feature may be beneficial during a tournament when you want to restrict how many boats are listening to your conversation with a nearby boat.
There are many factors that affect the range of a VHF radio. The VHF radio signals operate within a line of sight and therefore a taller antenna inherently has a longer range. Interference from some LED lighting is a trending problem, causing poor reception in effected radios. The U.S. Coast Guard has received reports from crews, ship owners, inspectors, and other mariners regarding poor reception on VHF frequencies used for radiotelephone, digital selective calling (DSC) and automatic identification systems (AIS) when in the vicinity of light emitting diode (LED) lighting on-board ships such as navigation lights, searchlights and floodlights, interior, and exterior lights.
Tournament Talking
If you are using a Starlink for communications, the boats’ antenna needs a clear view of the sky and the antenna face should be mounted so that it points towards the sky close to a 90 degree angle. The Starlink clusters (which they call 'shells') of orbiting satellites (4500 and counting) are in the northern direction in the northern hemisphere at an altitude of 342 miles. These Starlink satellites are constantly on the move, they orbit the earth about every 90 minutes at speed around 15,000 mph (unlike traditional VSAT and TVRO systems that are often pointed to a single satellite in the southern sky). Since a boat is always on the move, your Starlink signal strength and data speed may vary depending on the boats’ direction of travel.
Catch ‘em up! §
