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Thought I had another thread on this but couldn't find it. Anyway, Saildocs just made 500mb wind available in their grib files. The parameter is:

WIND500

I tried viewing it in GPSNavX combined with the 500mb heights, and it worked great. However, the winds do not appear in the current version of MacENC.

A great weather tool.

Scot

Hello All,

Just a short note to let you know that GMN's XGate e-mail compression software and service for Pactor/HF and Satellite phones has been ported to the Mac. We are currently looking for registered XGate/OCENS.Mail users to test the product and make suggestions for a final release version planed this spring.

Here is the call for tester notice. Please contact me directly if you are interested in evaluating this software.

The Mac version is a fully functional version of xgate which dials, connects, sends/receives e-mail, and disconnects.

We are looking for about 10 mac users that are computer savvy and self reliant to test the software. These users should be current GMN/OCENS users familiar with xgate.

There is no installer so a manual procedure needs to be executed to
a) Install the dialup adapters
b) Install (from a dmg) and configure XGate for use with the Mac mail program
c) configure XGate to use the dial locations setup in (a)

Our expectation is that these users will be able to find and help resolve issues on the mac. They should be willing to expend some effort helping to identify issues and propose possible solutions. We will be depending on these users to help us create a wireless e-mail solution for the general mac community.

We currently have support for Iridium, Globalstar, and Pactor HF XNet although any device with a modem script should work. We also have support for Prolific and Keyspan USB to serial adapters. XGate will run on ppc and i386 macs running OS X 10.4

Heare things that you will be able to do with XGate:
a) Use the mac e-mail client to send/receive compressed based e-mail with mid file restart
b) use GPSNavX's MacWX to request weather data
c) Mail filtering, big mail management, sms, and all other XGate features.

a full description of xgate an its features can be viewed on our general xgate page at http://www.globalmarinenet.com/email.htm


Thanks,


--luis

--

Luis Soltero, Ph.D., MCS
Director of Software Development, CTO
Global Marine Networks, LLC
StarPilot, LLC
Tel: 865-379-8723
Fax: 865-681-5017
E-Mail: lsoltero@globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.globalmarinenet.net
Web: http://www.starpilotllc.com

If you have Digital Ocean Charts (BSB 4) they have an update page..

http://www.digitalocean.ca/bsb_reg/2006/...adMac.html

Is there any sort of 'standard' for 12v outlets other than the ubiquitous cigarette lighter plug/socket? Besides being bulky, I find them very unreliable, in that no matter how I position the plug in the outlet, a small tap can make it lose contact. Doesn't seem to make much difference which plug is used, and I've tried several different brands of 'sockets' with no real improvement.

I've thought about just getting some sort of plug and socket similar to those that plug a power supply into, say, an ibook, and retrofitting all my 12v 'appliances', but before I do that I'm curious if others have similar problems and what they may be doing about it.

Scot

The Swiss company OFFGRIDSYSTEMS is selling foldable solar panels for power supply your electronic devices and laptops.

Here's the link for the laptop solar panel and should work with a Mac laptop too.

http://offgridsystems.ch/en/tech_data_sunbag.htm

regards,

Manou

The German weather site www.wetterzentrale.de shows weather maps from around the world provided by many weather systems (US army, airforce, UK, NL, JP, DE, FR etc. weather systems...)

I often use the Topkarten link with GFS (Global Forecast System) maps.
They show every infos you need (500, 750, 850 hPa; wind force and speed, temperature at 2m height, waves height etc) from 0 hours up to 384 hours forecast with an interval of 6 hours.
There are about 16 different info maps available from GFS, plus some panels which show several maps at once.

Link: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

There's even an animated screen which shows you 4 selected maps out of the 16 from 0 to 180+ hours.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/ani/gfs/

Unfortunately the anims need a fast internet connection, because loading these data via mobile phone is too expensive.

Though the site is in German I think one could easily understand the abbreviations and all maps are in color!

To use these maps when I'm sailing, I just do save some maps at home on my computer and do hotlink the URL addresses.
This way I only need do download the appropriate map and don't need to load the complete homepage.

Look at these examples and you know what I mean.

this shows the 500hPa map With Rtavn being the name of the map (Europe) and 06 = 6 hours, 1= first map from the panel
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn061.html

This shows 850 hPa and Temp. for the same region and time
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn062.html

This shows the rain in mm for the same region and time
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn064.html

This shows the temp (°C) in 2m height for the same region and time
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn065.html

This shows the wind direction and strength for the middle EU but the same time
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn069.html

Regards,
Manou

From the preliminary info available for iPhone I believe MacENC will be able to run on the new iPhone! This is very exciting.

Is your mac laptop screen too small and filled with too many windows?
Or running GPSNavX and MacENC on the same screen is confusing you?

Try VirtueDesktops (still beta but freeware)

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25159

It allows you to have several virtual screens with each screen running the application you want.
This way you can have one screen with your internet apps (browser for weather maps), one screen with GPSNavX and one with MacENC.
Switch between them with SHIFT-TAB.
Even DarkAdapted works between these virtual screen.

Was showing an old climbing friend (a Mac user) GPSNavX and MacENC (trying to entice him into sailing) and he was quite intrigued. From his climbing background, however, he was wondering if there are also topo maps available that would work with it. USGS maps appear to be in DRG format, which I assume is different than BSB (why can't the gov work together???), and haven't yet found others in BSB. Is there a source? Is there a better Mac option for 'land' navigation?

Scot

Had a funny experience today while playing with my AIS receiver in GPSNavX.

I got a hit from over 200 nm away. Probably a ship sending erroneous data, because it was doing 8 knots, but its position didn't change for a half hour.