I seldom pass up an invitation to go fishing, especially from a friend with a new boat. Sometimes the invitation includes an opportunity to solve an electronics problem, but I don’t mind. It usually gives me grist for a column.[…]
Computerizing fish finders and other marine electronics has been a good news/bad news proposition.[…]
Digital selective calling (DSC) features on VHF marine radios have been around for almost a decade. This feature lets you call other radios with the press of a button, using the called radio’s Maritime Mobile Service Identification number (MMSI) like a telephone number.[…]
Jokes about small-boat radars have historically run rampant: “Did you know you can either run radar on your bass/bay boat OR have children later in life?” and “I like having radar on my 18-foot boat.[…]
Fishing improves as spring shoves winter out of the way, and many of us spend more time on the water enjoying it. […]
If there is anything worse than a complicated sounder or chart plotter, it’s an owner’s manual that doesn’t give you the traction to climb the unit’s learning curve. My[…]
If you look at the top of a plain old flooded-cell, 12-volt marine battery, you see two widely separated metal posts and plastic caps lined up to cover six holes. The six holes let you replace water lost from each of the battery’s six cells during normal discharging and recharging.[…]
If you have an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) for your boat and it’s old, you need to take a quick look at it. […]
A friend showed me his new pontoon boat, and I was impressed until I saw how a sonar transducer was mounted on the back of a pontoon.[…]
Fish finders change their appearance and add new features each year, but the principles of sonar haven’t changed since World War II. […]
About 20 years ago, a company called PulseTech Products Corporation developed a way to cancel a process that prematurely “ages” lead-acid batteries, rendering most of them useless long before their components actually wear out.[…]
Many fishermen and boaters call any sealed, maintenance-free marine battery a gel battery, and that isn’t correct. We discovered in the charging column the differences between types become more than just semantics if you destroy a battery by using the wrong charger on it.[…]
The basic principles of sonar are tied to the laws of physics and can’t change much, but Humminbird’s Side Imaging feature proves that sonar’s application to sportfishing is still evolving.[…]
When you fire up your computer and get a warning message reading, “Hard Drive Failure Imminent,” you pretty well know what is about to happen.[…]
Have you ever wondered why your trolling motor doesn’t run as long as you think it should between battery charges, or why your batteries don’t last as long as you expected?[…]
Today’s fish finders have automatic modes that can tune in a better sonar picture than probably 90 percent of fishermen could come up with adjusting it manually.[…]