GPS - Ocean Navigator

01 Sep

Better than an atomic clock

Story and photos by Craig SmithMarine Technologyatomic clock, chronometer, clocks, GPS, GPS navigation, John Harrison, longitude, marine chronometer, navigation, time

An essential element for navigation is time. For navigation via celestial observations, you need to know your time down to the second. When we get into electronic navigation systems like GPS, second-level accuracy is not good enough. For that application, we need to start adding prefixes like milli-, micro- and nano- to seconds. The better we know time, the more accurate the navigation solution will be. And now the scientists and engineers are devising a new type of timepiece, called a nuclear clock, that will be the ultimate timepiece. One of the great stories in the history of navigation was…

12 Mar

Ocean NavigatorOcean Voyaging, UncategorizedAIS, electronic charts, Furuno, GPS, marine electronics, MFD, multifunction display, PBG, personal bathymetric generator, radar

Is there a piece of marine electronics that does so much yet has such a non-descript name? The multifunction display, usually dryly shortened to simply "MFD," is a powerhouse that can combine electronic charts, AIS, radar, GPS, voyage planning, tide data, performance instrument display, depth sounder display, engine gauge displays and a lot more. The MFD is more of a "Houston mission control" on your boat than some anonymous three-letter acronym, which is usually better suited to black box units that reside unseen behind a bulkhead. An example of the kind of power features available to MFDs was recently announced…