At the risk of stirring the pot some more....

In Australia we have C-Tick. Any equipment coming into the country with
active electronics must be C-Tick compliant. This requires at a minimum
compliance with the CE EMC standards. FCC standards are not recognized
as they are too lenient. It is amazing how many manufacturers (US and
Taiwan based) do not have CE approval for their products when to export
them to any decent sized market outside the US this is a firm
requirement.

As to bluetooth that may work but I would prefer to see standarization
using the ethernet cabling standards. These are well developed, very
inexpensive and well understood in the computing sector. There is
industrialised E/N and now even power over E/N. This is mass produced
technology with standard low priced connectors and a price tag to match.

The marine environment is bad but I have no trouble seeing how to
improve this connection technology in our 'beneign' world;-)

John VK3JP
S/V Chagall

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John VK3JP