Apple finally brings GALILEO on board [Update]

Good news, a year after its appearance on the first smartphones (¹), Apple finally integrates a GNSS receiver chipset compatible GALILEO. The iPhone 8/8+ and soon iPhone X are now equipped with the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem MDM9655 from Qualcomm, which includes a multi-GNSS receiver : GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), GALILEO (Europe) and QZSS (Japan) (²).

[Update 15/12/2017] The iPhone 6S and 7 are now compatible with Galileo signals.

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Hurricane Harvey, What impact of climate change ?

In full political news on global climate change, the terrible Hurricane Harvey questioned some scientists about the link between warming due to human activities and intense weather events increasing in recent years.

Source : National Weather Service

Source : National Weather Service

Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center and author of three books, including The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars, Dire Predictions, and The Madhouse Effect, develops a long commentary in theguardian.com (¹) about it, freely translated by myself.

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Digital nautical charts : purchase or subscription [Update] ?

[Update 3 th 2019]

With the multiple charts disappearances during the successive updates of iNavX, I received a number of requests for assistance in the recovery of the said charts.

Regardless of the fact that I am not supporting NavX Studios LLC (iNavX) (¹), a focus is needed on the method of charts provision by distributors for our mobile applications.

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Weather4D 2.0.20 The unlimited charting

We had been hoping for it for months, were expected, We waited - or we grew impatient, it depends – well, There she is : the latest update of Weather4D 2.0.20 is finally available ! On the menu, a major improvement : Assisted charting download and unlimited storage size. To which is added a small number of highly requested features and some bug fixed…

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Iridium Mail & Web app : GRIB weather files on iPhone and iPad in open sea [Update-2]

[Update 15 February 2019] The recent update of the application Iridium Mail & Web app gives me the opportunity to refresh this post originally written in December 2011.

The Wi-Fi Gateway Optimizer from RedPort allows owners of a mobile satellite phone to make requests and receive GRIB weather files from an iPad or iPhone on the high seas, into the wild, anywhere on the world.

After implementing and testing this solution On a long journey, It proved to be perfectly operational. However, it is limited to the receipt of the forecasts of the GFS weather model worldwide, and the wave pattern WW3, obtained by the American server's autoresponder Saildocs.

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Update iNavX 5.0.7 [Update-2]

[Update] Following the update 5.0.6 the charts were again no more reachable. A release 5.0.7 delivered in the night of May 15 until 16 has solved the problem. But alas, the Fugawi/Chart website was made unavailable for a few hours, and therefore no more access to accounts to retrieve charts. Definitely, fate persists !

You can now resume the procedure :

  1. Select the “Maps” page > “My cards” tab
  2. Select each chart folder you have purchased
  3. Type “Update Map List”
  4. Activate and download the folder again

To make it work, may be you need to logout/login to your Fugawi account. You will notice however that the French translation has been completed, at least one positive thing !

[Update-2]

To restore your cards in the “My cards” page, you have to pull the page down by sliding it with your finger, your purchases need to be refreshed.

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Nomad, an AIS Classe B mobile transponder

The company Digital Yacht propose Nomad, the first AIS transponder class B mobile with Wi-Fi interface.

The Nomad is supplied with a portable VHF antenna of 25 cm equipped with a sucker and a 4 metres cable, and with a built-in GPS antenna. USB and Wi-Fi interfaces will allow the use of the device with many navigation and charting application for iOS devices, Android, PC and Mac.

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BeiDou-3 China rushes its Global GPS

To date, the constellation of Chinese GPS satellites BeiDou-2 covers only part of East Asia and the Western Pacific. With the commissioning of GALILEO European GPS late 2016, the replacement scheduled of U.S. 2nd generation GPSII by the 3rd generation GPSIII, the launch into orbit of the 3rd generation of Russian GLONASS-M satellites, China intends to catch up with global coverage forced march. Read more …

The new division of the NV Charts

I had presented in May 2015 the excellent raster charts NV Charts by the German Publisher NV Verlag. In 2016, the previous cutting in 4 areas for France - Channel and Atlantic coasts - has been split into 8 areas for 49,90$ apiece. It should be noted that each year a new edition replaces the previous one, there is no update.

Bounderies in 2015

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