Another feature that was added with the 3.0 software update as shown in the photos above is the Time Plot page, and there is actually two pages. Each time plot graph can be customized from a long list of available data but the maximum recording time is only 60 minutes. After 60 minutes the data is discarded. This is unfortunate in regards to wind speed as neither the NSE nor the IS20 instruments record maximum wind speed, something us sailors always like to see. Even when sitting at anchor or the time that we got hit by a waterspout four years ago there may be a need to see what the maximum wind speed was. We can't just keep an eye on the wind indicator as waterspout is going right over us.
3.0 adds dual radar support to the NSE units allowing the unit to operate and control two radar antenna's at the same time, and both can be viewed on the NSE display side by side (as I have only one radar antenna both radar pages side by side are identical). A great feature for boats that need both close up and distant range simultaneously. Also added as shown in the photo above is two very large windows on the radar scope which can be highlighted and selected using the rotary control knob or the multi-directional pad. When the radar is in transmit one can put the radar into standby either by pressing the power/light button quickly or by pressing the Menu button and then following the prompts.
The OP40 wired remote is now supported with 3.0, convenient if the NSE is mounted out of arm's reach. The OP40 is easily connected via a Simnet cable to any junction in the Simnet system and one remote can control up to four NSE units.
The US version of the NSE will continue to come with InsightHD Cartography for the entire United States but new with 3.0 is that the Europe and Rest of the World units will include Navionics Coastal Cartography, basically coastal charts for the rest of the world.
New for the echosounder in 3.0 is the ability to select the digit size of the depth from small, medium and large (small and large shown above). What I didn't like about this feature was finding where to make the adjustment. Intuition would have one go to the Echosounder's menu of which there are two. But instead one has to navigate to the system menu, select System, Advanced, Echosounder and then select digit size. It's just not where I would have thought to look for it and nor did I find any documentation stating where it was. But then again this probably is a setting that will be set once rather than numerous times.
Another new feature added to the Echosounder the ability to customize upper and lower range limits. The first photo above shows a normal 0 to 40' range as I am currently in 37 feet of water. But if I want to take a closer look at what is happening in a specific range I can set that and in the second photo I have my range set to look more closely at the bottom (28 to 40'), though it could be set to anywhere.
And if one does not have a BSM-1 or BSM-2 echo sounder installed then the NSE will take depth information a NMEA2000 or NMEA0813 depth transducer and display that information as a depth contour, basically recording and displaying depth history similar to an echosounder.
There is still one thing missing that I am waiting to see in a software update and that is the ability to view weather GRIB files from a memory stick or card. Navico has added this feature to the B&G Zeus which is the sailor's version of the NSE so it would be nice to see this added to the NSE as well. I'm sure sailors aren't the only one interested in weather information.
Overall the NSE continues to perform well and it meets all our needs (except for the GRIB file support). As we wind down our summer we plan on getting our one year review completed not only on the NSE but the rest of the Simrad system as well.
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