Although the wide product selection could keep you busy for hours, if you want to find out what the latest marine technology trends are, visit the company’s “New Products” page. That page includes not only the latest fishfinders, GPS units and navigation equipment from the main manufacturers, but also a number of new gizmos that you may have never even seen before.

Recently featured on the new products page was a RFID man overboard system from Raymarine Electronics. What’s great about that emergency system is that it lets you immediately detect when someone or something goes overboard. Using it is also simple. Just give a tag to each of your passengers and attach it to your valuable cargo, enter in a few program IDs and you’re ready to go.

The system, called the Life Tag System, will then automatically sound an alarm or sirens when the tag leaves the base station’s transmission range (about 35 feet).

Currently, the price of the Life Tag System is $518, which is a significant discount from the list price of $618. Additional tags can be purchased for $94.95. However, if you give the company a call you might be able to talk them down. That’s because MAP pricing guidelines restrict the company from advertising prices below a set level.

Another new product featured on Marine Electronics Unlimited’s web site that will help you locate just where in the ocean your tagged passenger or cargo is, is the McMurdo FastFind GPS Satellite Personal Location Beacon. That product which sells for $246.95, weighs in at just 5.3 ounces.

But don’t let the weight or small size fool you. Not only will the GPS unit pinpoint your tags to within 10 meters, but it will also send out that distress signal continually for 48 hours to Cospas Sarsat Satellites, NOAA’s satellite system for search and rescue.

Besides the latest products, you’ll also find the marine technology classics at Marine Electronics Unlimited. If you have some time, take a look at the company’s marine computers and software. There, you’ll find B&G’s Deckman line of tactical navigation and racing software as well as the B&G marine instrument computer.

What’s unique about the Deckman software and computer is that they are designed for tactical navigation, giving you not only the racing edge but the safety edge. The computer instrument system has been specifically tailored to interface with all your boats sensors, instruments, and weather services.

Integrated weather and routing features supported with Deckman’s software include wind speed, barometric pressure, sea temperature, precipitation and wave height. But that’s not all. The Optimum Routing Tool clearly displays the sea and weather state of proposed routes. Additionally, it uses the latest animation technology to display projected seas and weather conditions along your route.

The integrated weather system also supports fully integrated weather downloads from UGTRIB, Saildocs and OCENS Weathernet services. Besides all that, the integrated weather system software is compatible with instrument systems such as the B&G H2000, the H3000 and WTP.

Overton, which started out in 1976, not only has one of the of the largest boat followings on the net (ranked at 35,201 worldwide and 5,997 in the United States by Alexa), but also has a strong brick-and-mortar network. Besides major distribution centers in North Carolina, Overton’s product line can be found in over 100 Gander Mountain stores throughout the eastern and midwestern United States.

Gander Mountain, which is considered the largest national chain of outdoor recreational equipment stores in the United States, combined with Overton’s boating supplies, gives boaters a little more than what can be expected from a boating supply store. And that’s because boating supplies and recreational outdoor equipment are items that boaters and recreational enthusiasts have in common.

The business formula of Gander Mountain, which also combines brick and mortar with a strong Internet presence, has so far paid off well. While other recreational and boating supplies companies have floundered and gone out of business in the Great Recession, this duo has thrived. Gander Mountain, in its 2009 fiscal year, reported slightly over $1.06 billion in sales. As of late, increased sales are nothing new for Gander. Gander’s sales have continually increased year after year since 2005, when sales were just $641 million.

Whether or not the Gander and Overton team will be a threat to West Marine’s dominance in the boating supplies market is still an open question. In terms of brick and mortar, Gander’s presence is primarily focused in the Great Lakes region. However, Gander has been steadily opening more stores, which now total 119 in 23 states. This compares to West Marine’s 330 stores in 38 states.

However, on the Internet, West Marine does not hold such a lead. West Marine’s worldwide Alexa ranking is presently at 22,699 and its United States ranking is at 4,767. In comparison, Alexa gives Gander a worldwide rank of 23,048 and a United States ranking of 4,288. All of which means that Gander and Overton together are ahead of West Marine in the Internet game.

All things being equal though, it’s hard to compare Gander and West Marine directly. And that’s because Gander obtains only about 15 to 20 percent of its sales from the boating supply and fishing segments. West Marine however is almost a pure boating play, obtaining its $900 million a year in revenue almost entirely from boating supplies.

One thing almost certain, though, is that between the two companies you will find almost any boating supply you could dream up. However, because Overton has a guaranteed lowest price policy, something that can’t be found on West Marine’s web site, it also means that you are more likely to find the lowest prices at Overton.

Cheap marine electronics

It’s not like it used to be in marine electronics. In the past, a company with an innovative design could keep the price high. Not so today, almost every marine electronics manufacturer uses the same off-the-shelf components to design their marine electronic products with.

And those components are becoming less expensive, not more. Those components, also known as integrated circuits, follow a law known as Moore’s law. This law coined in the 1960s, states that every two years, the size of integrated circuits decreases by half. Put another way, as time moves on component costs drop, size decreases and performance increases.

For those who want the best marine electronics at the lowest price, Moore’s law is important. Knowing, for example, that the expensive thermal imager you’ve been eyeing will in two years have twice the performance, be half the size and cost 10 to 30 percent less could be a decisive purchasing consideration. In fact, it may be just enough to make you think about buying used. Not just on a once-in-a-while basis, but on an ongoing basis.

One of the best reasons for buying used is that, if you’re willing to live behind the technology curve by just a few years, your overall marine electronics costs will be less, and, if you do it right, your boat will, over the long term, run at a higher technology level.

However, determining whether or not the used marine electronics path is right for you, requires some cost analysis. For this undertaking, determine what your long-term annual marine electronics budget is. Once you have that decided, make a list of what you’ll need to buy. Then compare the used costs versus the cost of buying new.

What you will find out, once you factor Moore’s law in, is that buying used equipment frequently will result in more modern marine electronics on your boat than buying new items once in a great while.

The decision to buy second hand, or even refurbished, should however not be taken lightly. Always find out about the used product and how it compares with the newer marine electronic devices. A good starting place is the installation and operations manuals that are often posted online at the manufacturer’s web site.

Knowing how to operate marine electronics devices can also really help in making a used buying decision. And that’s because you can test the functionality first hand before you make a purchase. That is, of course, if the product is not bought sight unseen.

When you buy a product sight unseen, especially an electronics device, it’s a good idea to get at least a 30-day warranty. That’s not because the product might stop working in less than 30 days, but because that’s about the amount of time you need to find out if all the features work.

Overall though, marine electronics product reliability is generally good, if not better than your typical PC. And one of the reasons is that most marine electronic devices have solid state memory as opposed to the rotating memory that most PCs rely on. The advantage of not having rotating memory is that there is also no rotating motor, which means there are no moving parts to wear out.

Apelco marine electronics

Apelco, the former Recreational Marine Division of Raytheon, was acquired by Raymarine several years ago. Raymarine still supports the Apelco product line, (which includes marine VHF radios, GPS enabled fishfinders and chartplotters) as legacy products.

On Raymarine’s web site you will find detailed documentation not only on how to operate all of Apelco’s equipment, but also the information you need to repair the devices. The documentation on Apelco’s devices not only includes detailed operating instructions, but the actual electronic schematics of fishfinders, giving you some insight into not only how to repair, but design and build a fishfinder, GPS unit or chartplotter.

For example, the VHF-FM Radiotelephone’s instruction manual for the Clipper 82, gives complete installation and operating instructions, detailed electronic schematics, electrical specifications, and the data sheets and application notes for the integrated circuits used in the design. But there’s even more. The documentation also includes a good deal of generally useful boating information, like a map of all the Coast Guard stations.

If you’re looking to find out more about the Apelco’s XCD 241 LDC fishfinder, you will find complete documentation on the Raymarine web site as well. That documentation includes everything you need to know to operate, maintain and repair your fishfinder: Electrical specifications, transducer accessories, transducer and transom installation are all completely laid out with old fashioned and easy to read pen and ink illustrations.

If you’re looking for GPS navigation capability in your fishfinder, and want to know the basics about GPS and sonar, you can look at Raymarine’s Apelco 560 Fishfinder/GPS documentation.

Once you review the literature, you can see that even old time products have many modern and useful features. The Apelco fishfinder, besides being water proof, having a split screen layout, and a 128X 160 pixel SuperTwist LCD, comes complete with what you need in sonar; a scan forward water depth of 600 feet and dual beam transmissions.

Beyond fishfinding, the GPS chartplotter also has numerous navigation features, These include two GPS navigation modes, a waypoint node, plot mode, route mode, and a course deviation indicator. Overall the GPS can store 10 routes and 200 waypoints.

The 560 originally came out in 1998 priced at $820.00 with a transom-mounted transducer and $1,135.00 with a bronze hull transducer. But that doesn’t mean you’ll pay anywhere close to that today. Looking on Craiglists you’ll find Apelco units, still in the unopened box, in the $20.00 to $50.00 dollar range.

Raymarine Electronics

However, in the long term, the acquisition of Raymarine Electronics may just change boating navigation technology forever. And the reason is that FLIR plans to use Raymarine Electronics sales and distribution channels to make thermal imaging a standard item on every boat.

FLIR Systems, which was built on thermal imaging technology, has been successful for years selling high end thermal imaging devices. However, its success has been primarily in the marine segments of the defense, security and surveillance industries, not the recreational boater market.

Although FLIR has been selling its thermal imaging products into the non-security segments of the marine market since 2006, the company so far has not obtained the market penetration levels it wants. And this is despite the fact that thermal imaging technology has been advancing and costs dropping.

With even more advances in thermal technology expected and lower prices to come, the opportunity to buy Raymarine could not have come at a better time for FLIR. The acquisition of Raymarine, which has an established business network in the recreational boaters market, correctly positions FLIR to obtain market share right before technologically induced priced drops accelerate demand.

With lower costs, the marine market for thermal imagers could very well become just as big a market as marine radar or sonar. Eventually, the market theory goes, boaters will see the advantage of not only having low-cost night vision binoculars, but also integrating 3D thermal image layers and views into their chart plotters.

The reasons why thermal imagers, also referred to as night vision devices, will become a mainstream marine navigational technology are many. Among them is the ability to more safely navigate waterways at night. Thermal imaging systems, unlike radar, give an actual 3D view of what’s in the dark seascape beyond.

With a thermal imager one can clearly see unlit docks, people and boats in the dark. And that’s because thermal imagers work on the basis of heat; different object temperatures are displayed in different colors.

Thermal imagers don’t offer absolute simulated day vision now, but if you look at the thermal images in FLIR’s line, you can see that the technology is getting very close.

Right now however, what makes thermal imagers even more of a deal besides a price that is within reason, is that they have incredible zoom ranges. Some night vision systems let you telescope in on objects that are up to two miles away. This feature not only makes thermal vision systems ideal for search and rescue operations, but also an ideal collision avoidance tool.

But what makes thermal imagers more interesting is that they can be systematically programmed for a wide variety of different navigation applications. A thermal imaging scanner combined with PC software can make for a sophisticated automatic object identification system. Thermal image scanners can be programmed to automatically search for objects that are within specific temperature ranges or have specific thermal fingerprints.

This infographic will reveal a few types of ocean dumping – from munitions to radioactive materials to human waste – it will blow your mind. This is a topic that is on all of our minds and in the media – thanks BP – but oil is just the tip of the iceberg. Mother Nature is not happy!

[CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW]

Understanding the world of wholesale marine electronics can be a complicated pursuit. Where one company might look at buying wholesale as buying direct from the manufacturer, another might look at it as buying from a distributor, and a third might look at wholesale as buying from distributors, manufacturers and importers.

The end result, as anyone who has scoured the Internet for the best prices knows, is a wide range of prices on any particular product. For the consumer, this means that if you look around long enough you may be able to find a great deal.

For many though, looking endlessly on the Internet for the lowest price isn’t their idea of a boating trip. Many in fact shy away from online purchasing all together. And that’s often because they don’t want to purchase something sight unseen. Others though, will often make a great effort to learn about a product and even try it out at the local marine electronics store, before, to the disdain of the retailer, buying it much cheaper online.

The truth of the matter is that online wholesale marine electronics outfits have a tremendous advantage over marine electronics retail stores. That’s because your store down at the dock not only has to add the mark-up from a distributor but also factor in brick and mortar costs, like rent.

Although marine retail outlets will always have their appeal, especially to those that like the brick-and-mortar shopping experience, it doesn’t mean online wholesale marine electronics outlets will stop striving to close in on retail outlet strongholds. And those strongholds are many. Customer service, knowledgeable sales staff, and of course, something fun to do are but a few.

This means that if online wholesale marine electronics companies are to capture more retail market share, they will have to address these issues. And they are expected to, once the video technology becomes available.

With the next generation of microprocessors and PCs, video is expected to come into its own. And with it, wholesale marine electronics outfits, which are often run by independent marine electronics retail stores, will provide the ability for you to see, talk to and get to know the sales wizards behind the online marine electronics curtain.

Another trend in the marine electronics market is for marine electronics manufactures to not only establish their own distribution channels, but also outright purchase existing marine electronics distribution companies to gain regional market shares. In fact, many marine electronics companies have done just that, buying up distributors not to eliminate distributor mark-up, but to boost their own profit margins.

As more marine electronics manufacturers adopt this business strategy, the end-result will be lower prices. That’s because eliminating the distributor’s cut from the retail price will allow them to gain market share.

Although the marine electronics manufacturers would like to sell direct to the consumer in their own retail outlet, odds are they will never be able to with their present business models. Unlike cell phone companies that have their own stores, the economics of scale will prevent marine electronics manufacturers from having their own stores.

That is unless, perhaps, they move into cell phone territory by incorporating cell phone technology into GPS units. Which of course is exactly what Garmin has done. Its GPS phone, the nuvifone, is available exclusively through AT&T, which, case in point, has a well-established national network of stores.

At Eagle Electronics’ web site not only will you find all sorts of product emulators for Eagle’s fish finders and GPS units, but all the documentation you’ll need to get the most out of them.

This means that not only will you be able to learn just how to work sonar and GPS units; but will be able to evaluate the ocean full of features that Eagle marine electronics devices offer.

These devices feature everything under the sun. Not only do you get configuration and programming capabilities, but you also get all the essential electronic hardware you need to go with it.

That hardware, which combines together GPS and fish finder functionality into one chart plotter unit, gives the software what it needs to navigate more securely and find what’s underwater quickly.

Eagle’s electronic sonar technology, which comes standard in its fish finders, offers 1500 watts of controllable peak power, allowing you to see fish all the way down to 800 feet.

But there’s a lot more than depth to Eagle’s sonar, and that’s speed. The sonar technology the company uses, besides a fish detection area of 70 degrees, actually works at boat speeds up to 70 miles per hour (61 knots). And it does it all with amazing clarity, even allowing you to fine-tune the clarity with the help of a ping speed adjustment.

At those speeds you’ll need sonar replay to review the underwater regions you’re scanning. And that’s just what Eagle offers. Sonar scanned images as well as data logs can be saved in real time and played back, not just on your color chartplotter, but also on your regular PC.

Enabling you to turn your fish finder into a environmental monitoring system, you can use your sonar logs to mark specific waypoints where underwater eco systems thrive. The system’s software also lets you identify specific fish types with different fish icons as well as set alarms that will automatically alert you when you are over shallow or deep water as well as fishing zones.

For mapping, Eagle also engraves a world base map into its marine electronics products, This map not only details the continental United States and Hawaii, but also provides over 60,000 nav-aids so that you have what you need to navigate around obstructions at critical navigation junctions. Add to that 40 map zoom ranges, from 0.02 to 4,000 miles and you have the power to mark your waypoints, event markers and routes with outstanding precision.

Besides its base map, you can add more mapping power with Eagle’s GPS Mapping Accessories Pack and MapCreate. Beyond that, Eagle’s marine devices are compatible with a number of other brands like Lowrance Freed Maps, LakeMaster Pro Maps, NauticPath and Navionics electronic charts.

Eagle’s chartplotters, because they are light weight and portable and have GPS/Waas receivers, are also great for inland waterways and hiking in general. And that’s because Waas enabled GPS lets you pinpoint your own location down below 3 meters, giving you the power to record your routes down to the nearest footstep.

However, if your pontoon is going to get you and your guests anywhere, and get you there in comfort, you will need an electric motor. And for that, you will need to know not only electric motor specifications, but also battery and solar panel specifications.

One of the first specifications to look at is the electric motor’s horsepower specification. The horsepower lets you estimate just how fast and hard your electric motor can pull. And that’s because one horsepower is roughly the power that one wild and free horse can put out in an hour. You can expect about the power of one horse from a one horsepower electric motor.

Next, you have to consider your electric motor’s ampere requirements. Your motor, in order to deliver horsepower, requires that it be supplied amperes. The more amperes you supply, invariably, the faster your pontoon will move.

As with cars, a primary concern about electric motors is their miles per ampere-hour rating. Just like cars have a miles per gallon rating, electric boats have a miles per ampere-hour rating.

Some electric motors are better than others, however as a general rule of thumb you’ll be able to get about 2 miles per ampere-hour from a lightweight electric pontoon, which works out to be about 24 miles per kilowatt-hour.

Besides your boat’s miles per ampere rating, it’s helpful to calculate just how far you can travel on one battery charge. This requires that you know how many ampere-hours that your battery stores when fully charged and your boat’s miles per ampere-hour rating. For a boat with an electronic fuel consumption rate of 2 miles per ampere-hour and a battery tank size of 24 ampere-hours, simply multiplying the two together will get you the distance, 48 miles.

The electronic fuel consumption rating of your pontoon and the ampere-hour of your battery can also be used to help you determine what size solar panels you will need to power your pontoon.

Here, one of the important specifications is the Watt rating of the solar panel. If you have a 1000 Watt solar panel, and it’s a very sunny day, your solar panel has the potential to deliver 1000 watts per hour (1 kilowatt-hour); more than enough to supply all the electronic fuel for a lightweight pontoon.

However, consider the fact that the slower you go, the more solar power you can save over a given distance. And this means, just like regular engines, the slower you go the farther you’ll get.