We lied!
It was exactly one month ago yesterday that I wrote about the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and only a week after that when I wrote that we would not be buying the new Standard Horizon GX2100 with integrated AIS. Well, we lied, or caved, depending on how you want to look at it. Virtually every person we have read about who has AIS onboard their boat has raved about its usefulness in determining the track of commercial vessel traffic. Yesterday, after having purged enough stuff to equal the purchase price of the new radio, we decided that it would be fair to trade our new-found money for this handy box that could potentially help us to not get run over.
Just curious… is there anyone other than me who sees a similarity between the AIS displays and the old asteroids video game?
Will this interface to your chartplotter, displaying the ships there?
bob
From what I have read, yes, it will.
I have heard from at least one person though who said that he would rather not clutter his chartplotter display with that info. He said that he just wants to know who to hail on the radio, etc.
Yes, it will interface with anything that accepts NMEA0183 AIS sentences at 38400bps – which is basically anything AIS ready…
Thanks Scott. I just visited your blog and LOL’d at your crew descriptions… sharkbait. 🙂
Mike
I cam dangerously close to buying this unit,but my shopping cart was already overloaded with expensive boat goodies at the Defender sale. I’m sure somewhere down the road I will regret this and end up with yet another VHF radio!
Solar goodies arrived on Friday,and I spent Saturday morning unpacking and checking it out. This will be a major project,but the goods look awesome!
What “solar goodies” did you buy Dan?
We bought 2 “skinny” 65w solar panels 58″x13.5″,which will mount on our stanchions with ss rails. The panels can be lowered for sailing,and raised for charging. Think “wings on a sailboat”. This setup should work well with our boat,and by my calculations will provide all the power we need. Also got a Blue Sky controller,and a Blue Sky remote digital meter.
Cool. I am familiar with those panels. I recently saw some photos on another boat blog where someone installed them.