I also thought that a primer on USB 2.0 (and the older USB 1.1) might be of interest to land and ship based customers (sail and motor yacht) of mine. Universal Serial Bus ( USB ) has become a very common connection both on devices such as Cameras, Printers, and Hard Disk drives - as well as on Laptop and Desktop computers. What gets yah on yachts a lot on your navigation computer is… the fact that most newer computers no longer have a Serial Port. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_port

[caption id=”" align=”aligncenter” width=”382″ caption=”9-Pin Serial Port Jack”][/caption]

Navigation computers often need a Serial Port to communicate with NMEA devices such as Radar and GPS … and Autopilot equipment. So on newer computers you often have to get a “USB to Serial” adaptor to allow these connections. There are such adaptors made for only one serial port, as well as ones made for high-end applications and for multiple serial ports, such as the ones made by Sea Level company:

http://www.sealevel.com/.

[caption id=”" align=”alignnone” width=”383″ caption=”Sealevel Model 2201 USB to Serial Port”][/caption]

So now on our way to check out the article - we see that it is very interesting to know about USB and its many applications on modern computers and in particular on sail and motor yachts. One thing that I’ve noticed is that older computers often have the older USB 1.1 connections on them. And I, like probaly other people, have a USB Hub from Belkin that is also USB 1.1. So when I plug in newer devices I get a warning message pop up telling me that this device would perform better/faster if it were on a newer USB 2.0 connection. Time to go buy hardware I guess. My newer computers have USB 2.0 and things seem to work great with that!

* I thought this might interest users both on land and on sail and motor yachts. Wireless USB - often you have to connect things such as a printer or a USB hard disk drive to your computer. Often it’s not convenient to locate that device close to the computer for the USB connection.

…enter Wireless USB ( WUSB )

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/608

Author: Gabriel Torres
Last Updated: August 20, 2008

Introduction
Wireless USB ( WUSB ) products are finally arriving at the market and in this article you will learn more about this technology and see some usage examples.

The goal of wireless USB is to connect peripherals such as printers, external hard disk drives, sound cards, media players and even video monitors to the PC wirelessly. This can be done by two forms. If the PC and/or the device don’t [sic: doesn’t] have native support to WUSB, you must install a dongle to convert a standard USB port into WUSB. If the PC and/or the device already have native support to WUSB - i.e. they come with a WUSB antenna - no extra device is needed. Up to 127 peripherals can be connected using a single antenna on the PC.

The maximum theoretical transfer rate from WUSB is the same as USB 2.0: 480 Mbps (60 MB/s) if the device is within 3 meters (9.84 feet) from the PC or 110 Mbps (13.75 MB/s) if the device is within 10 meters (32.8 feet) from the PC. As you can see, the more distant the devices are from the PC, lower is the transfer rate.

(more at the original article location)

—
Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
http://www.alanspicermarinetelecom.com
communications (at) marinetelecom.net
communications (at) alanspicermarinetelecom.com
a_spicer (at) bellsouth.net
+1 954-683-3426 +1 954-977-5245