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As the number of GPS receiver devices increases significantly, so does our dependency on the GPS, but satellites are subject to wear out and age.
THE U.S. Air Force has since launched 2010 the second constellation of GPS satellites, named GPS Block IIF, or GPS IIF, built by Boeing. These satellites will replace the GPS IIA satellites of the first constellation, launched between 1990 and 1997, with lifespan design about 7,5 years.
This summer, It's decided, We rent a large catamaran with our family ! Finally, It would be better to say "in extended family" : four adults, Two grown teenagers + their respective boyfriend + a child of 11 years old. We thought of everything : ride, Victualling, clothing, sunscreens, spectacles, Caps, Masks and snorkels, fishing lines… all ! A week before our departure, The skipper sushered us :
— You've thought about phone charging ?
There, a silence, then the answer :
— Uh,, isn't it, What for ?
"You will be nine on board, That's as many smartphones and certainly half of tablets… and there are only two cigarette lighter sockets on the boat !
— Diantre…
If satellite phone rates, mainly Iridium and Inmarsat, have not evolved in the United States., this is not the case in France. After storage removal of products remained on the shelves, new supplies from distributors saw a sharp increase. Indeed, the combined action of Euro decline and French VAT rise obligated to a significant prices increase, both the material as communication SIM vouchers, prepaid or postpaid. Read more …
Since end 2012 I found no more of maritime books causing me the overwhelming desire to share, Like the few novels described in this section " Reading ”. Today this feeling comes back to me, in a completely different vein, on reading the excellent Special issue n° 48 of Voiles et Voiliers : " Understand and use electronic charting ”. Read more …
In a previous entry I presented the SHOM raster charts provided by many publishers on iPad. For several weeks the German nautical chart publisher NV Verlag offers two new areas ending coverage of the coasts of France Atlantic and English Channel. These charts are usable both with iNavX on iPad/iPhone, only with GPSNavX and MacENC on Mac. We can therefore, unlike Navionics, use the two available copies of each region on two different media (iPad , iPhone ou Mac).
You remember the launch of TimeZero in June 2013 and the interest aroused among the many users of MaxSea on PC. I then wrote :
MaxSea is already planning future developments of its application. A future major release will likely see connection to external instruments over WiFi, File transfers (waypoints, routes and tracks files) with other applications, perhaps openness to other charting editors
We waited, hoped, and then Pschiiitt ! No more evolution since that date except for a few cosmetic improvements in November 2013 before the Paris Boat Show. No more contact for me with the developers (I was a tester for the beta versions). No more news for a year until rumors reported from the last METS in Amsterdam reporting an ongoing development integrating (finally) AIS, and also WiFi radar DRS4W by Furuno. This has now been done since the 23 th. Read more …
The iTabNav company sent me information regarding all current owners of a GPS Bluetooth-powered for iPad Wi-Fi, like the GNS2000 or BadElf.
Currently Apple iOS 8.3 No longer working with external Bluetooth GPS receivers. It seems that the Apple Location Services in latest version iOS 8.3 doesn't transmit the GPS data Received from these GPS GNS2000 to the application for navigation.
Apple Inc. is aware of this bug iOS and Promises A solution as soon as possible. I hope that this issue will be resolved in the coming days.
Multiple manufacturers applications for navigation Have Warned before The update iOS 8.3 like BadElf, see : http://bad-elf.com/blogs/bad-elf/18013536-alert-compatibility-issue-with-apple-ios-8-3-and-external-gps-receivers
Let's hope for the affected users that an iOS version 8.3.1 will quickly fix this bug. We can hope so because an update should quickly fix another bug that is much more important for Apple : the troubleshoooting of the Touch ID on many devices.
Iridium announced to its distribution network the shutdown of the AxcessPoint WiFi router at the end of February (¹) which allows an iPad or iPhone to connect to an Iridium phone to access an email service.
No need to worry for current users : the associated Iridium email service will remain active and accessible to all users. However, this router will no longer be able to be ordered from the 25 February. Read more …
The year 2015 barely started, the developers are already giving us the developments of their applications, probably made between two glasses of champagne during the holidays. I consider iNavX and iSailor as the two best navigation apps so far under iOS. These are the ones that offer the most extensive functions and the selection of the best charts. They each have their qualities and faults., and I take advantage of the new features brought by their recent update to try a quick function/price comparison.
Warning, this exercise is associated with a snapshot vision, valid today but quickly obsolete tomorrow, as changes are rapid in this domain. On the other hand, it is always difficult to distinguish between objective and subjective aspects in a comparison., I was already confronted in the past (¹). Read more …
By a corrected notification on 23 December 2014 (¹), with NWS (National Weather Service) NOAA announced a major update to its GFS weather prediction model to be effective in mid-January 2015. Actually, This model has been partially available on an experimental basis since the beginning of December.
March, the Global Forecast System (GFS) is a weather forecasting model produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) dependent on the NWS. Dozens of variables (²) are available through this dataset, from the temperatures, winds and precipitation down to soil moisture and atmospheric ozone concentration. The entire world is covered by the current GFS model with a horizontal resolution of 27 km between grid points up to 10 days. The horizontal resolution is 70 km for forecasts between one week and two weeks. The GFS model is a coupled model, Composed of four distinct models (An atmospheric model, An ocean model, A terrestrial model, and a sea ice model), that compete together to give an accurate picture of weather conditions. Changes are regularly made to the GFS model to improve the performance and accuracy of the forecasts. Mesh data is available for download via NOMADS servers (National Operational Model Archive and Distribution System) and widely used by app developers around the world.
