[C38] Wind Instruments. Industry changing

D. R. Strong drstrong at ucdavis.edu
Fri May 28 10:30:10 EDT 2010


Charles:
    Your story is consistent with the evolution of the marine 
electronics industry as related to me by a sailing buddy, who was a high 
exec at Magellan. Magellan was bought by Thales, a French Aerospace 
firm, which changed its name to Magellan, partly but not totally, then 
gobbled up other companies and was partly consumed by yet other 
companies etc etc.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_Navigation). A  
few years ago, I could get no service or help for my old Magellan GPS, 
and I gave it away.  Now  I see that I can buy it back, from a company 
called Magellan 
(http://www.magellangps.com/products/product.asp?segid=591).
    Last time my original, 30 year old Signet wind gauge malfunctioned, 
I called the company.  Their engineers talked and talked to me on the 
phone from the offices in Redondo Beach CA. They were extremely helpful. 
I sent my depth sounder, speedo, log  and my wind instrument to them and 
received back refurbished, like-new devices, which have worked very well 
for the past 5 years. A Google search suggests that they are still in 
Redondo Beach.
Don

Charles B. Finn wrote:
> A few years back, I decided to go with Navman for my upgrade from 
> Signet....  What a mistake!  Navman was sold and merged into 
> Northstar, which has discontinued the line and offers absolutely no 
> support!
> The problem is the LCD display fades erratically.  I have taken the 
> unit apart and it appears the connection is "glued" to the 
> motherboard, which is bizarre to say the least!
> I could have gone with other brands such as Datamarine or Raymarine, 
> but I had problems with those folks regarding maintenance on other 
> boats I have owned...
> Now there is a rumor that Raymarine is in trouble...  They were sold 
> to Flir Systems (a thermal imaging company) in May for pennies on the 
> dollar.  Maybe that is a good thing, but I went down this road with 
> Navman...
>
> Has anyone done some research lately on instruments?  If so, what 
> would you recommend?
>
> Regards,
> Chuck Finn
> Mighty Quinn  #114
> Great Lakes
>
>
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-- 
Donald R. Strong
Professor
Section of Evolution and Ecology
University of California Davis
95616
530 752 7886





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