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sailfish

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Everything posted by sailfish

  1. Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated. I suspect I need to do some major work on the manual. It seems documentation is always the last thing that gets addressed and is probably the most important. I think I'll make some short training videos on how to use the system as well and install stuff. Give something else for people to watch other than netflix I will try and send Iridium an email again and see if they respond again. I suspect you need to be a big commercial player to even appear on their radar. I've just added support for the Delorme Inreach tracker because a few yac
  2. Thought it might be time to update this post since there have been quite a few updates on the site, and quite a few new yachts (400 total now) So I've been busy in my spare time building more functionality into this cruisers tool. 1) New Chrome, Android and IOS Apps now available to work across most devices, except microsoft phones (hopefully chrome apps will run on those soon). These apps allow use from ipads and such and talk directly to the site thus not loading any html or css or js and the only communication is the stuff necessary to get your update on the site. Great for poor 3
  3. Hi Chris, Do you have a date for departure so I know when to have the weather splitting in the site by? The other stuff is working as I didn't need a sat phone to test that. The site has been quite busy with boats on the way to the islands and I've been ironing some issues out as a result and havn't had a chance to build it. Gulf Harbour Radio is getting localised weather information from yachts on passage and is taking that into account for its weather it's predictions. eg a yacht that other day reported winds 10kn NNW and a yacht 58 miles away reported SE 15. So in your sat updates
  4. Ok spent the day putting part of this in and its working on the live site, just need someone/chris14679 with a isatphone to test it. It works via normal email fine. so to do an update use the following. s@yit.co.nz (email address) boatname (email subject) [p]mypwd p:36 25.6037s 174 50.4068e This is a test update with a position for kawau island. Now recieving weather updates which maybe 500 chars or larger. I can split out the body into a series of 160char chunks ( I presume the address on sending doesnt enter into the char count does it? ) on the server and send
  5. It's quite easy to code in the support for this, I'll just double up the tags as you suggest. If you guys don't mind testing this functionality this season then I'll definitly add it for you no sweat. It's not much work and if it means your friends and family will follow you then thats awesome for them. I'm not sure how the format of the emails will come in so if your phone is active now can you test by just sending a test email to mike@ore.co.nz with the following. [p]mypwd p:175 35.41e 24 45.94s Not sure how many characters this is but I will stop it at 160 characters.I still have 60
  6. Well I've been beavering away tidying up the site somewhat and think it's pretty usable now after several yachts ironed out the bugs and stuck with it last season. A couple of improvements as requested by those cruisers that used it last season: * You can subscribe to weather areas for any number of days now. ie fiji: 14 (gives 14 days of fiji weather) * New weather area Norfolk for yachts on passage to New cal, subscribe for 3-5 days or so and then it stops automatically. norfolk: 5 . * New weather area brett for yachts coming in to NZ, 3 days out add this to your weather
  7. I have updated the homepage to show the diving, snorkeling and walking tracks now. Also when you select one of those to view you can zoom out and see other ones that are close by. eg zoom out on this snorkeling site to see some nearby dive sites and a snorkeling one. http://www.yit.co.nz/snorkeling/mirabil ... avau-tonga
  8. Ok well I've got it sort of all working now. Still heaps to do but its up and running and very usable (as far as my testing has shown). I've had to put it live now as the wife wants me to find a job and stop living off her I thought I'd try and extend last seasons cruise as long as I could Visit the live site at: http://www.yit.co.nz Everything on the site has been submitted by email, except the photos. You can pull down everything off the site via email (except the photos). You can pull down a whole bunch of weather reports via email which include but not limited to: :tonga
  9. Ok since i'm unemployed I decided to carry on and build this for gulf harbor radio anyway, since I did promise to do it for them and they provide such a wicked free weather service for yachts in the islands. So easter is the big test. Those that want to can use it, those that don't dont have to. Its totally free as I built it as a favor. Current Features done as of now for one incoming email: -Position report, plots on google map and draws lines following your progress. Shows position, speed and heading. -Optional status from email is shown on position update. (TODO push to facebo
  10. It's different in the fact that this is aimed primarily at radio operators as an interactive tool to manage radio nets. It shows lists of yachts currently checking in with them during each radio sched, which allows them to free up valuable time otherwise wasted on error prone position reporting during ssb transmissions. The other functionality is just a by product of the way it will operate. [cant edit page grr] I see now the reporter software may do the above as well. Then the only difference would then be that this would be a more modern web based application with the associated benifi
  11. It's different in the fact that this is aimed primarily at radio operators as an interactive tool to manage radio nets. It shows lists of yachts currently checking in with them during each radio sched, which allows them to free up valuable time otherwise wasted on error prone position reporting during ssb transmissions. The other functionality is just a by product of the way it will operate.
  12. Hi Cruisers, Having just returned from our first successful trip to the islands, we discovered a need for radio net operators, such as Gulf Harbor Radio, to have yachts report their current position via email, as too much precious time was being taken up with yachts reporting their positions over ssb during the radio net propagation window. Those that did report via email were being recorded in a book - a very laborious manual process which I thought could easily be automated. So I have just started today and hopefully will have a system up and working in the next few weeks where yacht
  13. whoa! i've had to unplug from shore power today and let the solar panels do their thing. They are now in desulfating mode - short bursts into the batteries to break down the sulfated layers. Its not quite 400w, 380 to be precise. One thing they did was give me a to small fuse wire and fuse (only 15amps) (must have been for 24v) cause although I havnt broken 15amps yet its come close and those wires are very warm! Mounted on top of my dodger, both panels take up a combined 1.6m2. They sit above our rain catcher with nice airflow underneath. I mounted them so there is only chance of one
  14. Just finished solar panel install. 400w with a 30amp mppt controller. Just trying to drain our batteries a bit to see what solar panels will put in. Currently its very very cloudy in wellington and still in float mode and pumping 6amps in which is good. So on the cloudest days we'll at least get 6amps. Thats enough to run our fridge and part of our freezer during the day
  15. Cut lots of steel out of the engine room in preparation for the 12-18hp(not sure what it is) diesel genny and dive compressor to go in. Made the frame they sit on so I can run it up as a unit out of the boat. Turned the old girl round so I could get ready to put the new 100m's of chain in but that didnt arrive so removed the diesel day tank and cut the off its mounts in anticipation for relocation further into the engine room.
  16. Hey bbay where did you get your furuno nmea plugs from? I need two of them for a furuno 1721 radar and equivalent age depth sounder. Instead of doing the windlass today due to the rain, wired in the radar through some existing cable runs, which unfortunatly meant ripping out the airintake cover as the screws were all puttied over Thinking I had found the hollow caverty where the cables were running I drilled in to intercept but saw daylight eeek, came out in the companion way steps d'oh !! Got it all sorted eventually, ~40m of wires installed (6 lengths) Wired up the xmas lights to
  17. Thought i'd kick this weekends thread off. Try to keep it marine related, no body cares if you swept the drive or cut the hedge I got a lot done but nothing finished Wired up the VHF Pa output to a 12v relay to sound the horn only to realise it outputs audio "stuff" and its not possible to throw a relay. Off to jaycar, one DIY circuit board later and the VHF can now sound the fog horn on automatic every two minutes (just need to solder it all up). Installed an external vhf speaker for the cockpit and wired up the anchor light. Will pull the windless motor out tomorrow (needs new
  18. busy weekend! just finished the new garmin ghp12 autopilot install, rewired the engine room electrical panel after a small meltdown (removed trailer plugs from wiring harness!!) and got the strange VSR box in our kitchen now working between both batteries (it came with the boat and I didnt think it was ever working - and confirmed because it now has LED's blinking ), then went out in the harbor and let the autopilot do its self configuration / setup and then let it sail us around the harbor. We learnt today how cool it is to not steer
  19. sailfish

    liveaboard

    looks like a lot of boat for the money. looks like it had self steering gear on the back + water maker. couple of things we still need to get. I imagine you wouldnt be dissapointed and its 13.5m which is roomy (1/2m bigger than ours). really like the look of that side cabin with the sliding door. my2c
  20. sailfish

    liveaboard

    This is our home. Inflatable pool is the water catcher or wifes new "bath" as she calls it. should catch a lot of water in the tropical downpours and can also hold it till we go (not sure how long you stay in one place though) top speed on the gps 12.3 down a wave through the kaori rip, just a lil bit scary, main was on its 3rd reef and quickly took it down after that boat came with the 37" tv, not my idea but worth having when living and not sailing. hooked the chartplotter up to it, pretty cool (chartplotter has remote). we are very very happy with the boat, steel is i
  21. sailfish

    liveaboard

    I read somewhere you can always buy another house or another car if it doesn't work out for you, but if you don't do it, you'll always regret it and you can't just buy another life or go back and do it when your old My wife and I are trying to do exactly the same as you but the only difference is we are 1 year ahead of you. I'm no expert, in fact far from it (you should see the look on the yachties faces at some of the stupid questions I ask, but i'll keep asking its the only way to know the answers) and so you won't get an expert opinion, just bits of an opinion mashed in with ou
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