Article by Capt. Steve Katz
Award winning
marine electronics
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The marine electronics industry honors manufacturers with product awards during the annual National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) conference every fall.
These awards are voted for by the 600+ members of the National Marine Electronics Association and represent a cross section of people in the marine electronics business, including installers, trade members, dealers and manufacturers. There were 16 product categories for 2016, including three new ones: Commercial, Safety & Security and Multimedia Entertainment. The category of “Manufacturer of the Year-Support” went to Garmin for the second consecutive year.
So, let’s learn a little about a few of the award winning products.
In the Fish Finder Category, Garmin won with its GSD™ 26 CHIRP Professional Sonar Module. The GSD 26 is a CHIRP digital sonar module that works with modern Garmin multifunction displays. The CHIRP technology provides great target separation at far greater depths than traditional sonar.
With a compatible transducer, the GSD 26’s Spread Spectrum technology scans on multiple frequencies at one time, returning vast amounts of data to the receiver. As a result, you can expect precise, shallow-water-like target separation at much greater depths – up to 10,000 feet.
The GSD 26 can also function in the traditional fixed-frequency mode, allowing you to manually adjust frequencies from 25 kHz to 210 kHz for enhanced targeting of specific fish species. You can also adjust transmit power from 300 kW to 3 kW (depending on transducer) for even more control over your sonar returns.
Garmin’s software allows this GSD26 to work with many transducers, most of which are manufactured by Airmar. As long as the unit is installed properly, the GSD26 will know the model and performance characteristics of your transducer and self-configure the GSD26 to match with the transducer.
The GSD 26's dual-transceiver design allows for simultaneous and independent transducer operation on two frequencies’ at the same time. This could be in the form of two separate single frequency transducers or one larger dual frequency transducers.
Operating the GSD26 is easy, you have complete control of the GSD26 and the data you see , through the controls on your compatible Garmin chartplotter, which easily connects to the GSD 26 over the Garmin Marine Network. The Garmin GSD26 has a list price of $1,999.
In the Marine VHF Radio category, the winner was the Icom IC-M506 VHF radio. Icom has had a long history in making quality VHF radios, and this newest M506 is a great unit.
The M506 series gives users the option of a full featured VHF fixed mount, radio with an integrated AIS receiver and NMEA 2000® connectivity. The M506 is packed full of features including “Last Call’ voice recording function, ‘Active Noise Cancelling’ technology plus Icom’s new intuitive menu-driven user interface and large dot matrix display making it really easy to use.
The AIS receiver can show AIS vessel traffic information on the display or connected chartplotter. The AIS target call function allows you to easily set up an individual DSC call. The Plotter, Target list and Danger list can be toggled on the display.
With the plug-and-play functionality of NMEA 2000, the M506 can easily connect to a NMEA 2000 network and interconnect with other equipment. Also the NMEA 0183 input/output can be used for external GPS/NAV interface.
An interesting feature is the last call voice recording saves the last two minutes of the last incoming call, and any call can be manually recorded if desired.
The only complicated part of the Icom M506 VHF radio is the model variations. There are 5 different models:
The base model M506-01, includes all of the traditional VHF radio features of the M506-11. That includes NMEA2000 and NMEA0183 connectivity for date in and out M506-31, same as the above M506-11 but with a rear microphone connection, allowing you to mount the radio in one location and using the included extension, mount a microphone up to 20-feet away.
The M506-21 is similar to the M506-11 but includes a built-in AIS receiver.
The top model is the M506-41, and includes all of the other module features, AIS and rear microphone set-up.
These ICOM radios start at $399 street price and there is a manufacturers rebate available for $100 on all versions of the M506, good through September 30th 2017.
Captain Steve Katz is the owner of Steve’s Marine Service and holds NMEA, AMEI and NMEA2000 certificates along with ABYC Master Technician certification and factory training from many manufacturers.
