Favorite New Equipment / Gadget

[CaptainK]

I love my shake'em up flashlights. I own 3 of them. They really do the job. Especially, when you need them. Shake'em up for 20 to 30 seconds. And you get 20 to 30 minutes of light from the device.

I love'em

[hellosailor]

"And you get 20 to 30 minutes of light from the device."

And what brand and model is that?

[CaptainK]

Oh. For $5.00 US dollars. I bought it at Walgreen's. They call them "Magneto Shake N' Light."

They have worked pretty well for me. But, my lil' brother has had one go bad on him straight out of the box. But it is fixable!!

[Chief Engineer]

Originally Posted by Kai Nui

THey may require some effort, but they work fine. A couple of friends were returning from Monterey on a 25 footer. The outboard started having problems from the start. They had to motor out of the harbor in reverse They got about 4 miles from Moss Landing, in the middle of the night, and the wind died. The out board was shot. They called just to let us know where they were. We headed out in our boat to tow them in. THey had almost no battery left, no moon, and some fog. No GPS, and the VHF was just about dead. They DID have one of the shake lights. We headed out to the mile bouy and had them give us their heading to the smoke stacks that are behind our harbor, and well lit. We took the recip, and started looking for them. We thought we saw a nav light for awhile, but it was dim, and hard to see, then went away. About 2 miles before we found them, we saw what looked like a strobe. We decided to take a chance that was them. We still had cell phone contact, but the vhf was useless. It occured to me to ask if they had a flashlight. They said they had one of the shake lights, and had been shining it in our general direction. That light brought us directly to them. My neighbor, who was crew, on our friend's boat said he hadn't used his right arm that much since high school

Priceless fo' sho'

[David M]

Looking forward to installing a Furuno Navnet 3D system which includes ARPA/ECDIS. I work inside a very busy harbor and identifying 38 knot ferries, fast container ships, tugs, yahoos on fast powerboats etc at a quick glance will make my job safer...especially at night and in the fog.

[gobi1570]

Originally Posted by Talbot

We are changing to digital (probably in the same time frame). some stuff is already being broadcast via satellite and cable at HD for those that can receive and view, but I dont know about terrestrial broadcast at HD.

Our normal broadcast is already at a higher resolution than your normal because ours uses 625 lines, whereas yours is 5?? My main TV at home also has a refresh at 100Hz so that makes for a pretty good picture. I suspect that the main reason for going HD is to allow the screens to get even bigger.

Ya, but your standard-def broadcasts are only 25 frames per second, ours is 30(actually 29.97fps, but who's counting?). As someone who has worked in broadcasting for a long time you hear debates about which system is better all the time. PAL fanboys like PAL because of the 625 lines, meaning higher spatial resolution. NTSC fanboys like NTSC because of the higher temporal resolution. I don't really care for either. They have both been a thorn in my ass my entire career. Clients coming to the US from the UK for a shoot/edit and at the end asking us to give them broadcast masters in PAL...oy. HDTV has made things much simpler for me. Despite the myriad frame sizes, and frame rates, I can use one piece of equipment that will do them all. Ohh...and playing Call of Duty 4 at 1920x1080 on a 46" LCD is the bomb!

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by gobi1570

NTSC fanboys like NTSC because of the higher temporal resolution.

And the green faces
NTSC = Never twice the same coloUr.
SECAM = Something essentially contrary to the American method.
PAL = Peace at last.

Mike