I just upgraded the firmware for my Watchmate (an AIS computer and
display). The upgrade gives the unit a graphical situation display
and provides a graphical solution for bearing and aspect at closest
point of approach. This is very cool. I've been plotting the AIS
data on a maneuvering board but now I don't have to. It's a very neat
unit and I recommend.

So, the upgrade is free and Vesrper will do it for you or you can do
it in the field. Being a long way from a dealer (we're still in La
Paz awaiting solar panel replacements) I decided to try the upgrade
myself. The upgrade is no big deal, one needs to connect the unit to
a computer via a serial cable. The cable I built was good enough to
work for "handshaking" but just a bit too noisy to do the firmware
upgrade. It was one of those intermittent failures that is a pain in
the ass to track down. But, Jeff at Vesper spent hours emailing,
Skyping and IMing me and he built and sent me a program with logging a
special terminal emulator to help with the debugging... I was super
impressed with all of that. So, I thought I'd pass it along.

Cheers,

--Tom.