Nautilus Lifeline

[Peter_C]

Hi, Mike here, President of Nautilus Lifeline

We're taking some proactive steps without knowing exactly what happened out
in Hawaii. We believe we can make the product even better by shifting our
thinking on the firmware.

Now that is the type of response I like to see from a manufacturer

I am glad I have Nautilus Lifeline in my pocket, and it is nice to know my unit is upgradeable to new improved features with no associated costs, and easily downloadable software.

 

[Magnolia3]

If your marine radio has that feature when he sends the distress signal your MNSI and location shows up. My boat radio does that......

All Marine radios after about 2005-6 are reqired to have DSC on them. Uniden is a great radio no doubt, I own a handheld...but it is not water resistant by any stretch of the imagination.Don't ask how I know this.. :depressed: Go with an ICOM or a West Marine ICOM knockoff.. West also makes awesome clear dry bags that are worth every penny of the $15 they cost.

Regarding your comment about that laminated card.. solo divers need to take a further precaution to make sure that IF they do not surface that somewhere there is note with their diving destination on it.. say the seat of the car where it was last parked at the boat ramp? It makes it a bit easier for the Coasties to have an idea where to start looking for the shark nibbled body.. just sayin'. A SPOT turned on in the boat while you are down would not hurt either.

I mean a diver could read the coordinates, but that does reduce the functionality of the unit. and how many boats could use the gps coordinates to find you?)
...

Chief, I gotta have hurt feelin's on this one... I can see you are not a boater. EVERY person carrying a "six pak" license and ALL licensed captains of whatever tonnage they are licensed for can find coordinates... Next all of us who cruise can do the same.. charts and chartplotters are not that hard.. anyone with a gps can plot coordinates. Under International Maritime law, I am bound to respond to a distress signal. One has to wonder how many dives can say "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY"... rule is thrice... it gets attention.. if someone gets on a vhf on channel 16 and starts chattering about being left behind or hurt.. I may or may not listen.. but IF I hear those three words.. you bet your bippy I will perk up and pay close attention. Rules also say I have to have my radio on the second I leave the dock. If I hear "diver at xx lat and yy long" I can literally have it entered into the chartplotter in a few minutes and have my course plotted as can anyone with charts and a plotter onboard.. I don't know a serious boater/cruiser to does not have this capability.

finaly pretty much ALL Cruisers nowdays have a SSB HF radio onboard as well as the VHF. As someone has already said.. VHF is line of site and the curvature of the earth plays into that as well as how much power the unit it pushing and how high the antenna is.. on Magnolia the antenna and wifi is 45 feet up... that is my mast ht or air draft if you will. I have, sitting here in the marina, heard the dockmaster at the Heminyway Marina in Havana talking to incoming boats.. other nights I am lucky to get the 1.5 miles to the BOATUS boat at the citymarina. I was DXing with a friend early this week and we went offshore and pushed some serious wattage (we were 5 miles out in international water) and picked up Cartagena Of course that was NOT with a SSB... we would never have a modified radio onboard that has all the ham bands AND SSB... not me... never.. :blinking:

Another thing, you with VHF's should learn is the term "PAN, PAN - PAN, PAN" pronounced "pahn pahn" it is the same as the cop dispatcher saying "all points bulletin". Had one last weekend as I was going under the Skyway to head south.. boat sunk on the edge of the channel.. Coasties emergency frequency is Channel 16... working is 22A. You can use either they monitor both.. Most marina's have a particular channel they monitor and ALL bridged in Fla monitor 9 up north its a different channel..
IF for some reason you cannot hail someone on those channels.. 68 is a common channel for chit chat.. flip over to that and see IF you can hear anyone.. again use the MAYDAy and say you need help..

That said I like the Nautilus and I Like the company's response to the incident immensely. I was on the fence about getting one.. now I am sold.. despite already owning my own personal EPIRB and the one of the boat.. I also think that having a nautilus in a boat's ditchbag would be good idea..
YMMV
'bella
aboard S/V Magnolia

 

[Magnolia3]

My experience has always been you can hear a tower after you lose the ability to talk back. Figure the in VHF a mobile is pushing 45-50 watts and the portable maybe 5? Not sure how that translates to marine VHF, but typical a base or mobile will push more watts out than the portable. Then again, radios are funky things and seem to do their own thing now and again.

depends on which button you hit on the handheld... I keep mine on 1w to conserve battery life... IF I am offshore I might raise it to 5w.
Also if it is a handheld and the battery is low, then you get shorter send abilty. Weather and sunspots can also affect sending ability of radios.

 

[Jax]

I do not understand the Lifeline registration issue. Reportedly, the signal from a 406 MHz PLB may not be acted upon by SAR assets unless the PLB is properly registered. I am glad that Aldora did an operational test of the usefulness of the lifeline in their environment. It lets them know if their procedures and emergency equipment will do the job if needed.

I did not see where anyone addressed this.

I suspect the PLB must be properly registered to differentiate between a "real" distress signal from PLB, and someone that thinks it funny to scramble the rescue folks by sending a fake signal.

 

[Jax]

Chief, I gotta have hurt feelin's on this one... I can see you are not a boater. EVERY person carrying a "six pak" license and ALL licensed captains of whatever tonnage they are licensed for can find coordinates... Next all of us who cruise can do the same.. charts and chartplotters are not that hard.. anyone with a gps can plot coordinates.
'bella
aboard S/V Magnolia

:lol: Maybe, like me, Chief's run into far too many people to whom the map is some kind of voodoo magic! :laughing:

 

[cvchief]

Chief, I gotta have hurt feelin's on this one... I can see you are not a boater. EVERY person carrying a "six pak" license and ALL licensed captains of whatever tonnage they are licensed for can find coordinates...

Well, don't have hurt feeling! While I did get my inland waterways certification YEARS ago, I am, as you deduced, not a boater. Have you ever been on a dive boat in CZM? Many are pangas:



I spend some time at Caleta on every trip and I can tell you that MANY boats DO NOT have GPS visible on board. Nor have I ever seen a chart. I am quite sure many do maybe have both, but certainly not all. Maybe they all have charts buried out of sight? I dunno. While many of the licensed Captains are QUITE familiar with the waters the operate on, I don't know that helps with coordinates absent a map or GPS? I guess I will have to ask that question next trip. Most of these boats though simply run up and down coast a couple hundred yards off the beach.

Next all of us who cruise can do the same.. charts and chartplotters are not that hard.. anyone with a gps can plot coordinates. Under International Maritime law, I am bound to respond to a distress signal. One has to wonder how many dives can say "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY"... rule is thrice... it gets attention.. if someone gets on a vhf on channel 16 and starts chattering about being left behind or hurt.. I may or may not listen.. but IF I hear those three words.. you bet your bippy I will perk up and pay close attention. Rules also say I have to have my radio on the second I leave the dock. If I hear "diver at xx lat and yy long" I can literally have it entered into the chartplotter in a few minutes and have my course plotted as can anyone with charts and a plotter onboard.. I don't know a serious boater/cruiser to does not have this capability.

finaly pretty much ALL Cruisers nowdays have a SSB HF radio onboard as well as the VHF. As someone has already said.. VHF is line of site and the curvature of the earth plays into that as well as how much power the unit it pushing and how high the antenna is.. on Magnolia the antenna and wifi is 45 feet up... that is my mast ht or air draft if you will. I have, sitting here in the marina, heard the dockmaster at the Heminyway Marina in Havana talking to incoming boats.. other nights I am lucky to get the 1.5 miles to the BOATUS boat at the citymarina. I was DXing with a friend early this week and we went offshore and pushed some serious wattage (we were 5 miles out in international water) and picked up Cartagena Of course that was NOT with a SSB... we would never have a modified radio onboard that has all the ham bands AND SSB... not me... never.. :blinking:

My emphasis added. I guess that depends on the definition of 'serious boater/cruiser'? They know their reefs though through experience and landmarks. Like French Reef, La Francesca, is supposedly named that because it was right in front of the house a French woman used to live in. They run down the beach, look at shore and the water around them. The DM maybe sticks a head in the water to double check and in the divers go.

That said I like the Nautilus and I Like the company's response to the incident immensely. I was on the fence about getting one.. now I am sold.. despite already owning my own personal EPIRB and the one of the boat.. I also think that having a nautilus in a boat's ditchbag would be good idea..
YMMV
'bella
aboard S/V Magnolia

I have nothing bad to say about the Nautalis. I am toying with buying one. I like gadgets. The ability to talk on VHF is good. I am just wondering about all the capabilities. Did you know that some Captains simply don't speak English in Cozumel. That could make for a challenge when talking to them while bobbing.... On the other hand, I could order a Margarita, con sal, con roca, con Hornitos and just climb on the boat when it delivers it?

I still wonder if anyone knows of boats equipped with radios capable of recieving and decoding the coordinates in Cozumel, but I am coming to terms with the idea that no one has an answer to that.

 

[Mike]

EVERY person carrying a "six pak" license and ALL licensed captains of whatever tonnage they are licensed for can find coordinates... Next all of us who cruise can do the same.. charts and chartplotters are not that hard.. anyone with a gps can plot coordinates. Under International Maritime law, I am bound to respond to a distress signal. One has to wonder how many dives can say "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY"... rule is thrice... it gets attention.. if someone gets on a vhf on channel 16 and starts chattering about being left behind or hurt.. I may or may not listen.. but IF I hear those three words.. you bet your bippy I will perk up and pay close attention. Rules also say I have to have my radio on the second I leave the dock. If I hear "diver at xx lat and yy long" I can literally have it entered into the chartplotter in a few minutes and have my course plotted as can anyone with charts and a plotter onboard.. I don't know a serious boater/cruiser to does not have this capability.

All really good information, but I'm betting the electronics on your boat and/or most blue water sail boats are worth more than the entire average fast panga type dive boat in Cozumel. Like Chief said, charts? Maybe, I'd hope so, but as for anything like a chart plotter? I was on a dive boat in Isla Mujeres where we broke down, even with my rudimentary knowledge of engines it was clear to me all the problem was, was a bolt fell off the carriage of the altenator, which caused the main belt to loosen and fall off and cause the water pump not to be able to cool the engine, I explained to them all we needed to do was put the belt back on, stretch the belt by pushing the alternator back in position and put the bolt back in and we would be in business, it was a 5 minute fix, but the crew couldn't even find a wrench to put the bolt back in, so we drifted for an hour until being towed in. They did have a screw driver and a hammer with a broken handle, that was good, I think we could have opened a beer if there were any on board. There are some bigger boats operated by a few of the bigger outfits and probably some better equipped sport fishers there through, those would probably have some good equipment on them.

We are going to update the firmware to include a
self diagnostic test that can be performed by the simple touch of a button.
So before you go diving all you have to do is open the lid and press the
button for a couple of seconds and the unit will go into a diagnostic
routine, load test the battery for 4 or 5 seconds and hopefully send a
message that reads “diagnostic check complete, clear to go diving”.
​

We are also going to switch the display over to continuously show the
percentage of battery level. We're going to modify the button so that the
strobe can be activated without being in the distress mode. And we are going
to adjust the Lifeline desktop software so that a battery conditioning mode
can be activated.

Wow, awesome upgrades, those sound like really great new features for your product!

 

[fdog]

I did not see where anyone addressed this.

I suspect the PLB must be properly registered to differentiate between a "real" distress signal from PLB, and someone that thinks it funny to scramble the rescue folks by sending a fake signal.

Lest someone become confused, the Lifeline is not a PLB. It is a VHF radio.


All the best, James

 

[cvchief]

Lest someone become confused, the Lifeline is not a PLB. It is a VHF radio.


All the best, James

In fairness to them it is MORE than just a VHF radio. It does have an automatic setting to transmit a distress call with coordinates encoded and must be registered in some fashion with somebody before you can use that function. It doesn't talk to a satellite like the other do-hickys though......

 

[cvchief]

They did have a screw driver and a hammer with a broken handle, that was good, I think we could have opened a beer if there were any on board.

And let me be the first to say I am glad to see they had their priorites straight. Tools won't always allow you to fix problems underway, but beer will give you something to do while you try, PROVIDED: You can get the beer open!!

Wow, awesome upgrades, those sound like really great new features for your product!

They do sound pretty cool don't they with all that can be done in firmware. Now if a guy like Q would give me one and explain it while I make smart alecey comments......