T&T: Nobeltec (Michael Slater)

[Michael Slater]

George, Thanks for your input, I have been talking to a number of trade
people and am quite concerned about Maxsea and Furuno's Time Zero. I have
been on the Furuno exhibition stand and Time Zero it certainly was not on
the MFD's, you then hear them let slip about a bug that makes it slow on the
MFD, then that the PC Time Zero is a cut down version of previous versions
to accommodate Time Zero.

Some views for the purchase are that Maxsea has been unable to make inroads
into the US market and that they see Nobeltec as their conduit. I wonder if
it is deeper than that, allegedly Furuno is unhappy with Navionics, and with
recent manoeuvres at Raymarine maybe their love affair is ending too? What
if the Maxsea Time Zero is a problem they don't know how to resolve?

I am however uncomfortable with the way in which Furuno and Maxsea
integrate. You cannot purchase an array and BB, you have to have a Furuno
MFD (Navnet 3) somewhere, compared to Nobeltec where you have the IR box in
the back somewhere. If you go PC the drive for me is flexibility in upgrade
paths and more control over the strengths of your system.

So I continue to pursue the Nobeltec solution, although I am finding the
weather display somewhat limited from sailmail GRIB's. Do you or anyone else
know if the Koden Radarpc, with its array and BB, which is rebadged
Nobeltec, is all the same BB, or are there some tweaks in the Nobeltec
version of it?

Thanks

Michael Slater
Sally Lillian
Falmouth UK

 

-----Original Message-----
From: George & Emilie Rankin [mailto:gerankin at msn.com] 
Sent: 04 October 2009 17:55
To: trawlers-and-trawlering at lists.samurai.com
Subject: Re: T&T: Nobeltec (Michael Slater)

 If you want to use Nobeltec software then I would stick with the existing
Nobeltec radar.   Furuno might integrate their radar with Nobeltec in the
future, but it could take awhile and probably will have issues for the first
couple of rounds.    It may be a couple of years before you see a working
system.    It sounds easy, but note that it took C.E. a long time to move
their radar support from Beta.



I am happy with my Nobeltec 12KW.   I'm not sure that you could find much
difference between the Koden and Furuno scanners, both are professional
grade
(at least in the open array models.)



On the other hand, if you like Furuno use MaxSea.   I have been part of
teams
whose job it has been to integrate software developed by different companies
and it is never easy.   "Nightmare" is a better description.  You don't want
to see the first thing that is produced, especially if they are trying to
integrate "foreign" hardware.   (Wait for the complete rewrite.)



George