Best Computer for Open CPM - Sail Mail - Winlink - Pactor

[Alberg30Shill]

I recently bought a 12 bolt low power fanless PC with great specs and a 500 Gig solid state drive for speed and power consumption and no moving parts! Cost $555 and connects to my 32 inch TV which works great. Comes with Windoze 10 trial but I'd recommend Linux Mint which is the Windows XP of Linux in terms of usability and reliability.

[Alberg30Shill]

Yeh, smart TV's are dumb :-)

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Moo

Weatherfax & Communication
BaoFeng UV5R, draws milliamps. Costs about $30-50 USD, No Ham Lic. Req'd BaoFeng BFF8HP, is the successor. No Ham Lic. Req'd

Rick, that radio is a transmitter, it needs a license in most countries. It is also UHF/VHF where there is not much weatherfax transmitted.

You only need a license to transmit, not to recieve. I use a uv5r 24/7 anchored watching ch16 & 72, draws much less power than the VHF set. (have a ham license as well, not that that makes any difference.) Though you're right, no good for weatherfax. Handy for ocean passages as well though to keep a Vhf watch drawing little r power.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Three Sisters

I can only add that you may want to keep in mind that the wpa2 protocol for wi-fi has been breached by hackers. Who knows what devices the new software or firmware will support. And who knows how long ago this hack was completed. Just something to keep in mind while planning your new system. Best of Luck.

Probably anything will be unnoticed by us lot, the hole was spotted a little while ago and everyone kept quiet about it as patches were added. To get in the hole you need to be sitting there within range of the wifi access point extremely unlikely to be a problem for anyone on a boat. Top end, maybe zero chance

[Nicor]

Originally Posted by conachair

You only need a license to transmit, not to recieve. I use a uv5r 24/7 anchored watching ch16 & 72, draws much less power than the VHF set. (have a ham license as well, not that that makes any difference.) Though you're right, no good for weatherfax. Handy for ocean passages as well though to keep a Vhf watch drawing little r power.

I have not been able to find a battery eliminator for the UV5R.
From what i have read the ones on ebay have the case cut open and just VR stuck in there, cobbled together.

Did you find a decent battery eliminator ?

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Alberg30Shill

Yeh, smart TV's are dumb :-)

Not exactly, they have their place for example in the master cabin, where you can network all your devices and Nav information wirelessly.

Dockhead is right, if you have a computer beside a monitor/TV , not advantage to making that TV smart

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Nicor

I have not been able to find a battery eliminator for the UV5R.
From what i have read the ones on ebay have the case cut open and just VR stuck in there, cobbled together.

Did you find a decent battery eliminator ?

I made a little regulator to go from boat battery to 8v which the uv5r charger cradle takes, just leave it on charge all the time. Must be heading towards being like that full time for about a year now. Or a buck converter off eBay should work as well. The uv3r charges from usb but it can't dual watch so I use a 5r, have a couple of 3r's as well.
One of these days might get round to making a colinnear antenna for more range offshore.

Pity neither these or rtl dongles go down to the wfax frequencies, you can get up converters for the rtl dongles but might as well go for something like a Degen 1103 for the costs involved imho.

[Nicor]

Originally Posted by conachair

I made a little regulator to go from boat battery to 8v which the uv5r charger cradle takes, just leave it on charge all the time. Must be heading towards being like that full time for about a year now. Or a buck converter off eBay should work as well. The uv3r charges from usb but it can't dual watch so I use a 5r, have a couple of 3r's as well.
One of these days might get round to making a colinnear antenna for more range offshore.

Pity neither these or rtl dongles go down to the wfax frequencies, you can get up converters for the rtl dongles but might as well go for something like a Degen 1103 for the costs involved imho.

I have a SDR Play, its good for Wfax, just really dont care for it as the usb driver and other require software does not seem to work too well with other drivers on my computer. Uninstalled it all. Have not used it in about three years.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by conachair

You only need a license to transmit, not to recieve. I use a uv5r 24/7 anchored watching ch16 & 72, draws much less power than the VHF set. (have a ham license as well, not that that makes any difference.) Though you're right, no good for weatherfax. Handy for ocean passages as well though to keep a Vhf watch drawing little r power.

Well yes and no. In many countries, including where I am now (New Zealand), you can't by them without proving that you are suitably licensed. They are cheap enough that if you ordered one off Ebay it would sneak in under the radar though

[rgleason]

Sorry, I misunderstood, will change...with a ham license I don't suppose it would go very far with 4 watts. Would still be useful. KC1BKM

But would like to find a cheap and easy wfax device to add.

Moo

Rick, that radio is a transmitter, it needs a license in most countries. It is also UHF/VHF where there is not much weatherfax transmitted

Conachair

regulator...to 8v which the uv5r charger cradle takes..or a buck converter off eBay... The uv3r charges from usb but it can't dual watch so I use a 5r, have a couple of 3r's as well. One of these days might get round to making a colinnear antenna for more range offshore.

Pity neither these or rtl dongles go down to the wfax frequencies, you can get up converters for the rtl dongles but might as well go for something like a Degen 1103 for the costs involved imho.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Sorry, I misunderstood, will change...with a ham license I don't suppose it would go very far with 4 watts. . . .

You can do a lot with 4 watts, if you have a good antenna and good installation.

My fixed VHF set is usually kept on 1 watt. I've had "weak but readable" signal reports from 60 miles.

I have a decent VHF/UHF Diamond antenna on a spreader, connected with RG214. A 5 watt Icom VHF/UHF handy talky hooked up to that does remarkable things over water.

[rgleason]

For those with Samsung LED TV how do you power them directly with 12vdc?
Also please what is the power use for the size of screen?
Is the OLED better on energy use?

[Alberg30Shill]

Originally Posted by rgleason

For those with Samsung LED TV how do you power them directly with 12vdc?
Also please what is the power use for the size of screen?
Is the OLED better on energy use?

I use a small pure sine wave inverter. Mine is overkill at 150 Watts but gives me room for other low power devices too. $150 on eBay. My 32 inch LCD uses 40 Watts.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by rgleason

For those with Samsung LED TV how do you power them directly with 12vdc?
Also please what is the power use for the size of screen?
Is the OLED better on energy use?

Can't remember the model number but mine is 19" and just goes straight into the boat 12v supply (sometimes 15v ) .

Draws about 1A.

[Tupaia]

I will chuck in my 10 cents.

I have replaced my old ITX PC with a BeeBox mini pc by ASRock, with latest Intel Atom processor. I went for the lightweight N3050 dual core rather than the more power hungry N3150 Quad core or J3160. Purchase w/o operating system and get a license for Win7 Pro so you can turn updates off completely.

SSD drive, added a USB to 2xSerial Y adapter for older NMEA data.

Runs OPENCPN, SIMRAD 3G Radar straight into the ethernet port and SSB through USB Pactor. It also wifi's instrument data out, including AIS to an Android tablet running OCPN.

It has bluetooth that will scream music to headphones or separate audio system.

Very small amp draw.

The HDMI feeds a 22in, 17watt, Cello OLED TV/DVD that has a USB input for big harddrive for films that is controlled from the TV remote so the PC doesn't have to be running. It can be disconnected, so not drawing power when using the system for navigation.

The nice thing about this setup is you can switch off the screen completely when you are not viewing it to save power.

It all runs directly off the house bank and will withstand engine starts without dropping out.

All of it is straight out of the box so no technical know how is required to set it up.

Peter