On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 03:47:00 -0800, "Ed Price"
wrote:


I would much prefer fiberoptic in a commercial or military vessel. It's much
more secure and robust in the presence of a hostile RF environment. And in a
commercial vessel, it shouldn't be a hardship to route sufficient fiberoptic
cabling.

Fiber sounds great until you have to install it. Fiber requires
amazingly expensive equipment to splice and connector to it and
specialized training to do it right, things pleasure boaters will
simply not pay for. It's not an option when a large corporation or
the government bureaucrats aren't paying the bills.

True, I can see certain advantages in having a roving port with an RF link
to the ship's systems, and if you really feel you need this in a personal
watercraft environment, then Bluetooth looks like the way to go. But RF data
links are a "complicating" option, and you should always try to make systems
as "simple" as possible.

I have a Netgear wireless router under its own LAN DHCP server
connecting to a serial to ethernet device that configures from the
DHCP the Netgear provides. The serial port is connected to the Noland
NMEA multiplexer's serial port. In the computer, a "virtual serial
port" driver fools The Cap'n into thinking it's talking to a real
serial port, when, in fact, the driver has it talking to the wireless
router and serial-to-ethernet box via the notebook's 802.11b wireless
card.

The Cap'n operates fine, even from the other end of E-dock where the
signal from the little antenna on the Netgear starts to peter out.
You can lay on a beanbag behind the anchor windlass and navigate the
boat....(c;

802.11b would be better than Bluetooth to replace the NMEA stupidity
we use now, but Bluetooth is SO easy to configure and operate and is
supported by all the computer manufacturers and PDA manufacturers,
already. It simply configures itself and everybody can talk to
everybody else.

Imagine a complex NMEA system with NO WIRES and NO SIGNAL INTRUSION
and NO CORRODED TERMINALS.

I'm just dreaming. We all know marine electronics is a hodge-podge of
proprietary crap to try to force us to buy one brand of equipment.
Seatalk, H-1000 bus, Garmin, etc. What a stupid mess it all is.



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....