Marine Electronics

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	Vacuum sealer systems aren’t just for the kitchen anymore April 26 at 9:00 am Eating dinner at a friend’s house almost 20 years ago, I mentioned how good fresh fish tastes compared to fish that was frozen. He told me with a grin that the fish we were eating had been cooling in his freezer for two years.

	Super portable GPS March 25 at 9:00 am When the press release about Garmin’s new marine-oriented Quatix sport watch hit my inbox, I opened it with lukewarm enthusiasm — but the more I read about it the more excited I got. Two basic advantages of a watch with built-in GPS are that you don’t have to set it manually when you cross into another time zone and it can be accurate to within about a billionth of a second or, say, within one second every 30,000 years.

	Is there an electric outboard in your future? February 25 at 9:00 am We fishermen have seen all-electric boats come and go, but most of these vessels have been small, slow and had limited carrying capacity that make them best suited to ponds or protected lakes. Electric outboard motors with from five to 10 horsepower are available from several makers, and electric primary propulsion outboard motor systems for open utility and pontoon boats have long been available from manufacturers like Minn Kota and Torqeedo.

	Semiautomatic fish finder operation January 28 at 9:00 am In the early days of automatic fish finder operation, I advised serious anglers to switch to manual mode where they could tune in a much better look at the underwater world. I think that has changed, and I now suggest that fishermen run their units in auto mode and just tweak the settings where they see problems. You can now go into a unit’s menu and set parameters that help its computer meet your personal preferences and better handle your recreational waters.

	Lowrance introduces new touchscreen unit, custom contour mapping service December 31, 2012 at 9:00 am Do you have a favorite fishing area that isn’t mapped as accurately as you’d like? Now you can do it yourself with any Lowrance HDS multifunction unit, including new models with touchscreen control.

	Locating those pesky breakers and fuses November 26, 2012 at 9:00 am The first thing that springs to mind when an electrical accessory stops working is a blown fuse or popped circuit breaker. In a new boat this usually means pressing the circuit breaker button next to the accessory’s switch or popping the cover off a box near the console and checking the fuse or breaker that protects the now powerless accessory.

	The most important electrical impulses are between your ears October 29, 2012 at 9:00 am Floating around for three hours with nothing but a Coleman cooler between you and drowning is enough to make a guy and his friends renew the commonsense boating habits they’ve let slide.

	What the heck is trolling motor navigation? September 24, 2012 at 8:00 am A July press release from Johnson Outdoors Marine Electronics begins, “Continuing the evolution of GPS trolling-motor navigation, Minn Kota’s i-Pilot Link utilizes GPS technology and ethernet connectivity to achieve new levels of boat control.” Having attended a webinar on this new system, I was already thinking about how much that opening sentence is going to mean to fishermen.

	Preventing engine cancer August 27, 2012 at 10:00 am Galvanic corrosion can make your boat engine’s lower unit look like you ordered the special zombie edition. Here’s why it happens and how you can prevent it.

	Clean your displays inside and out July 30, 2012 at 7:00 am Who hasn’t mistaken the shadow of a water spot on an LCD screen for a fish, waypoint or radar target? Or was it a smear of sunscreen lotion or insect repellent left by a fingertip? Hopefully it wasn’t a permanent scratch, crack, craze or other scar. And the growing popularity of touch screens in marine electronics is increasing the hand-screen contact problem.

	Off-road hybrids June 01, 2012 at 7:40 am Anybody who runs a boat with a gas engine on the back and an electric motor on the front is familiar with the gas-electric hybrid concept. When you want to be silent and not breathe engine exhaust, you run the electric motor. When you want to go faster and noise and exhaust are not a problem you run the gas engine.

	Dog tracking made easy May 01, 2012 at 4:14 pm Editor’s Note: Although this product isn’t related to marine electronics, the author ran across this great hunting product. A few years back I had a scare I don’t ever want to repeat. I was hunting pheasants with Brit, a Brittany I acquired through the PAWS rescue group in Austin, Texas, when she disappeared. We were hunting in grass prairie speckled with islands of tall, dense brush 30 to 50 feet across.