Similar to ACR’s ResQFix PLB, McMurdo has introduced a GEPIRB (GPS-equipped Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) that’s smaller yet supposedly performs better.

The 1.5-pound SmartFind Plus ac­complishes this largely by using LEDs for its strobe, which along with automatic seawater activation, built-in flotation, and longer trans­mission life are what distinguish EPIRBs from PLBs (plus the fact that some models come with an automatic float-free mount).

Note that Simrad has also introduced a compact GEPIRB in the same price range and that both companies also offer GPS-less models, but those will typically take longer to de­liver less-accurate position information to the SAR authorities.

ACR’s ResQFix Personal Locator Beacon is 35 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than its previous AquaFix model and yet purportedly performs better.

This is not so trivial when you consider that this six-inch-high unit is meant to acquire a fast GPS fix in tough conditions (like from its float bag next to you in a rough sea), transmit that position and your ID via 406 MHz to the search-and-res­cue satellite system, and also send out a 121.5-MHz signal that rescuers can home in on (note that your own yacht could use that homing signal too).

My confidence in this complicated technology was bolstered when I visited ACR’s factory last year and saw both its elaborate GPS simulation facility, used to fine-tune the Pill’s receiver, and its extensive testing routines. The $750 ResQFix, which uses a five-year lithium battery and is waterproof to 33 feet, also has its two circuitry, battery pow­er/voltage, and GPS acquisition testing built in. Note that PLBs like this are also carried by small aircraft pilots and others who venture into wilderness, watery or otherwise.

1. Phonetic Alphabet

Clear communication is critical when sending emergen­cy VHF messages. To avoid any confusion, use the pho­netic alphabet to spell out important information, such as your boat name and the names of your crew. Below is the NATO/International phonetic alphabet.

A = alpha             B = bravo             C = Charlie           D = delta              E= echo

F = foxtrot           G = golf H = hotel              I = india                                J = Juliet

K = kilo                  L = lima                 M = mike             N = November  O = Oscar

P = papa Q = quebec         R = romeo           S = sierra              T = tango

U= uniform         V = victor             W = whiskey      X = x-ray              Y = yankee

Z = zulu

2. Making Mayday Call

To make a Mayday call, tune to channel 16 and follow the instructions below. Remain calm, and speak clearly.

A)     Press the PTT and say into the mike, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is (name of your boat repeated three times).”

B)      Repeat “Mayday, this is (your boat name)” one more time.

C)      Report your position as accurately as possible.

D)     Report the nature of the emergency.

E)      Report the kind of assistance required.

F)      Report the number of people aboard and the condi­tion of any injured.

G)     Describe the boat (length, design, color, and distin­guishing marks) and her present condition and sea­worthiness. This message should not exceed one minute.

H)     If there is no response, repeat the entire message. If there is still no response, try another channel.

In an emergency situation that does not involve immin­ent danger to the boat or people onboard, follow the same procedure but substitute “Pan-Pan” (pro­nounced pahn-pahn) for “Mayday.”

3.  Important Channels

CHANNEL 16 is the distress, safety, and calling (hailing) frequency that the U.S. Coast Guard monitors continuously. All vessels equipped with VHF must monitor channel 16 when underway and be prepared to assist in an emergency. Always initiate contact with the Coast Guard on channel 16; you’ll be redirected to a working channel. Never request a ra­dio check on 16.

CHANNEL 22A is the primary working channel the Coast Guard uses for communications with the boating public and is where severe weath­er warnings, hazards to navigation, and other maritime warnings are broadcast. The A denotes a simplex channel (ship to ship) in the USA mode, while the channel in an International or Canadian group (without the A) is a semi-duplex channel (ship to marine operator).

CHANNEL 13 is the navigation/piloting channel. Locks and bridges monitor channel 13, and it must be used for navigation and piloting pur­poses only.

CHANNEL 6 is the ship-to-ship frequency used for safety-related communications.

CHANNELS 9, 68, 69, 71, 72, and 78 are common working chan­nels. Switch to one of those once you’ve established contact on 16.

4. Distress Calls

MAYDAY is a request for immediate assistance in an imminent life- threatening situation. If you hear a Mayday call, listen—do not transmit. Determine if you are in a position to assist. If not, maintain radio silence and monitor the call.

PAN-PAN an emergency when a boat and/or people are in jeopardy but not in imminent danger. As with a Mayday call, listen to the pan-pan call, determine if you are in a position to assist, and keep radio silence if you are not.

SECURITE (see-cure-i-tay) is the signal that navigation information or weather warnings will be broadcast.

The big consumer electronics company Cobra has gotten serious a­bout marine VHF, introducing both this feature-packed handheld and a Class D DSC fixed radio. For instance, the $170 HH425 and the $190 F80 are each sub­mersible and backed by three-year warranties.

Both also offer a “rewind, play again” feature that space shots like me will find handy—a built-in memory chip records the last 20 seconds of whatever breaks squelch on the channel (s) you’re monitoring, giving you a second chance to catch a call.

The 425 also includes a full 5-watt GMRS (a.k.a. “family radio”) transceiver, along with goodies like privacy codes, individual caller rings, and VOX (hands-free) operation. That means that with a couple of inexpensive GIVIRS handsets, perhaps from market leader Cobra, you’ll have a sophisticated communications network for use around a ma­rina and beyond (unlike VHF, GMRS is land legal).

You can even set up the 425 to scan both selected VHF and GMRS channels simultaneously, though a little man­ual investigation is required. In fact, most of the 425′s features do entail some oper­ational complexity, plus I found its ergonomics clunkier than more conventional handhelds, like the Icom M34.

1. Hailing and Communication With Another Boat

Correct hailing procedure is to state the name of the boat you are hailing (usually on channel 16), then the name of your boat, followed by “over.”

“Over” tells the other party you have finished speaking. This is impor­tant because if both radio operators transmit at the same time, neither will be heard. Only one party can speak at a time. Any other words—”yoo hoo” or “Is anybody out there?” – constitute incorrect procedure.

Once you’ve established contact, switch to a working channel. Once you’ve switched to a working channel, say the name of the boat you are hailing followed by the name of your boat. At the end of your conversation, say your boat name and “out” or “out, (your boat’s name), returning to 16.”

2. Digital Selective Calling (DSC)

DSC is a semi-automated method of establishing a ra­dio call simply by pushing the distress button.

When the DSC button is activated, the radio automatically sends a distress call with GPS position (when a GPS is connected to the transceiver) and the nature of the distress to the Coast Guard and other vessels within range of the transmission.

It then scans the appropri­ate channels for a response. DSC also allows users to immediately receive distress, urgent, safety, routine, position requests, and group calls from other DSC­ equipped transceivers within range. Every radio equipped with DSC must have a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number assigned to it.

A ra­dio’s MMSI is a unique nine-digit number (similar to a telephone number) that must be programmed into the radio and registered to operate the DSC functions.

3. To Make a DSC Distress Call

A)  Lift the protective cover over the distress button and press and hold the button until the radio’s display shows that the call has been sent.

B)  Once the mes­sage has been sent, the transceiver will sound an au­dible distress alarm.

C)  The transceiver will automati­cally monitor channel 70 for a DSC acknowledgment and will also receive calls on channel 16.

D)  If no DSC acknowledgment is received, the transceiver will repeat the distress call at four-minute intervals until acknowledgment is received.

F)  When the DSC acknowledgment signal is received, an alarm sounds, channel 16 is automatically selected, and the radio’s LCD screen shows the MMSI of the responding trans­ceiver.

E)  If the Distress button was pushed in error, many radios will cancel a distress call when the Clr and then Ent buttons are pushed.

Perhaps you’ve noticed, as I have, that one of the features particularly intrig­uing to many electronics shoppers these days are those slick virtual engine-gauge screens you can pull up on many a multifunction display (MFD). Never mind for a moment that most of those MFDs can’t yet connect to many engine models; instead, imagine how those screens would look if you ran a company that makes umpteen real ma­rine engine gauges every year.

Many of its current gauges—there are some 10,000 models if you count all the available colors and the various brand names they’re sold un­der—feature a little data LCD in addi­tion to a traditional pin and dial. Moreover, the company’s MG2000 sys­tem includes a powerful microprocessor that’s built into a gauge: like casing and able to talk with all sorts of engine con­trol modules (ECMs), then mix the data with other inputs to do calculations like fuel flow, and finally rebroadcast every­thing to a network of less-intelligent gauges.

Which is how I came to be sitting in an I860′s building checking out an elabo­rate, do-everything, touch-screen graph­ical user interface (GUI). ‘Maestro earned its name because this PC-based system is intended to let its user conduct most every imaginable helm function. Picture not just full virtual engine gaug­es and charting with radar overlay and fish finder, but also quad cameras, con­trol of and other equipment, even e-mail and Web browsing. The Maestro project is ambitious, but there are nu­merous reasons to believe that.

Thus Maestro looks and feels a lot like Maptech‘s current fourth-generation i3 system, not to men­tion the Sea Ray -Navigator it also pro­duces. That’s good, as over the years Maptech has come a long Way toward making fingertip navigation elegantly easy. And I say that based not just on the demo, but also some real finger-on time trying Maestro‘s prototype software loaded into a touch-screen tablet com­puter.

In tall-windowed rooms first used by those uniform seam­stresses, I saw everything from metal lathes and dial printers to circuit board populators, all in action. And it’s ISO 9001 and Gold U.S. military supplier certifica­tions suggest it knows how to make things well.

At any rate, the hardware side of Mae­stro looks good. A custom aluminum casing means the separate processing unit stays cool without fans, and all sorts of connectivity is built in, including a Wi­Fi radio and a PCMCIA slot meant for a high-speed cellular data card. The $8,000 base system includes one sun­light-viewable 12-inch touch screen but will support a second touch screen as well as output via S-video to an onboard TV screen.

The compa­ny claims that its smart products like the MG2000 and Maestro can understand not just ECMs that speak in NMEA 2000, SmartCraft, and J1939 but also J1587, ALDL, and ISO 9141 K-Line. Frankly, I’d never heard of the latter three before, and I think that a number of marine electronics developers are just learning about them, too.

And Maestro is not only significant new product. Antares is a 3.8-inch color dis­play that will bring much of this same digital engine infor­mation to small boats, includ­ing fuel management and even remote control of Jensen Marine stereos. It will first be seen as an OEM product, but expects to re­tail it for retrofits eventually.

Meanwhile, the company has also been developing a series of WatchDog communications products, and the latest 750 model is turning heads. While currently targeted at commercial fisheries, its ability to combine Iridium satellite, GSM cellular, and GPS to provide reliable yet reason­ably priced global tracking, monitoring, and messaging has attracted the interest of serious cruisers.

So, should you happen to boat up the Thames this summer, look for that old factory clinging to the western hank about ten miles north of Long Island Sound?  ’While many of the big marine- electronics brands we all know are con­glomerating (Northstar and Navman recently joined Simrad and Lowrance under the Navico umbrella, for exam­ple), a new one may be coming to life in the little Yankee town of Uncasville.