AIS Display Units

affinite said:
Why would you buy that rather than the NASA "AIS Radar" (inc receiver) ?
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Surely the answer is that it's not made by Nasa! The Vesper product is far superior. It's waterproof to start with (Nasa isn't). It can display course/heading up, rather than just North up (Nasa can't). It has the ability to filter targets (Nasa doesn't). It has CPA/TCPA alarms (Nasa doesn't). It has the ability to mute alarms on individual vessels (Nasa doesn't). It has an anchor watch feature (Nasa doesn't). Plus it has a nicer display and better user interface.
 
Another vote for the Vesper Watchmate - for all the reasons outlined so far.

WRT the NASA AIS display, I just couldn't bring myself to buy something which describes itself as a "radar", when it is nothing of the sort. It is also pretty basic - you get what you pay for.

I didn't want my smallish Furuno Radar/Chartplotter cluttered up with AIS info.
Neither do I like having a laptop computer on my chart table at sea, for more than a few minutes at a time. I also dislike having all my eggs in one basket.

My only problem with the Vesper was the too quiet alarm, so I connected up an external buzzer, which would wake the dead (a couple of pounds from Maplin).

The after sales service and advice are also first class.
 
OK point taken - no need to shout

pvb said:
Surely the answer is that it's not made by Nasa! The Vesper product is far superior. It's waterproof to start with (Nasa isn't). It can display course/heading up, rather than just North up (Nasa can't). It has the ability to filter targets (Nasa doesn't). It has CPA/TCPA alarms (Nasa doesn't). It has the ability to mute alarms on individual vessels (Nasa doesn't). It has an anchor watch feature (Nasa doesn't). Plus it has a nicer display and better user interface.
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Its about twice the price as well isnt it ? Dont get me wrong Im not a huge fan of the NASA gear, I guess you get what you pay for.
 
affinite said:
Its about twice the price as well isnt it ? Dont get me wrong Im not a huge fan of the NASA gear, I guess you get what you pay for.
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I don't know where you get these ideas from! The cheapest Nasa Radar is about £200; you can get the Vesper Watchmate 670 display for £240. Hardly "twice the price".
 
call me pedantic but ...

pvb said:
I don't know where you get these ideas from! The cheapest Nasa Radar is about £200; you can get the Vesper Watchmate 670 display for £240. Hardly "twice the price".
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Doesn't the 670 requires an external AIS receiver - I was contrasting the price of the Nasa box with Watchman 750 which does have the integrated receiver
 
Good deal here for a Watchmate 670, until 1st March.

Hook it up to inexpensive GPS and AIS receivers and you have a great combo, with a simple upgrade to an AIS transceiver later, if you wish.
 
pvb said:
I don't know where you get these ideas from! The cheapest Nasa Radar is about £200; you can get the Vesper Watchmate 670 display for £240. Hardly "twice the price".
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If you're comparing like for like then the WatchMate 750 is the closest to the nasa standalone. Seems about £425 ish so yes, twice the price.


I've been to Brazil and back with a nasa standalone and it works just fine. See in a millisecond if you need to pay attention or not. If I had the money to spare I'd def go for the vesper. Looks like it has nmea in/out as well which is a very big advantage over the nasa.

As to the OP, I think Tarik is going solo so in his shoes i'd ebay the ais engine and go for a standalone. The nasa has loud alarm and works down below 11v drawing next to nothing, not sure about the vesper but prob similar with a very big plus of nmea so you can plug into the laptop, but double the money. Imho something as useful to singlehanding as ais is best kept simple.
 
Conachair said:
If you're comparing like for like then the WatchMate 750 is the closest to the nasa standalone. Seems about £425 ish so yes, twice the price.
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But you're ignoring the context of the thread. The OP wanted a display only, as he already has an engine. Pierscovill suggested the Watchmate 670 display. Affinite said why not the Nasa Radar instead? When reasons given for superiority of Watchmate, affinite then suggested the Watchmate was twice the price, which it patently isn't.
 
pvb said:
But you're ignoring the context of the thread. The OP wanted a display only, as he already has an engine. Pierscovill suggested the Watchmate 670 display. Affinite said why not the Nasa Radar instead? When reasons given for superiority of Watchmate, affinite then suggested the Watchmate was twice the price, which it patently isn't.
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Fair enough, in that context. Given that you wouldn't get much for the redundant ais engine going the nasa route.

I'd still ditch the engine and go standalone though. Even if you were really hard up and got 30 quid for the engine you could still get a system which works for under 200.
 
pvb - I think we have some crossed wires here, Im not really disagreeing with you wrt the suitability of watchmate for the OP ...

I think the positive comments re the Vesper are enough to convince me of its superiority over the NASA box as a stand alone solution - I note the advantages that it apparently has over the NASA (Course up display and NMEA out being pretty significant I think)
It sounds like a good solution to the OP's original question and If I had decided on a stand-alone AIS receiver I'd seriously consider it.

but

the thread did take a slight detour into comparing the costs of stand-alone AIS receivers. In that context the NASA box, although admitedly lower spec, is half the price.

Just one last (perhaps mischeivous) comment - I want to put an AIS recever on my boat this year but Im planning a different soltion. I am going to replace my radio with the Standard Horizon 2100e. It has a built in AIS receiver/display (V.Small, but it will give me CPA alarms without the PC plotter necessarily being on) with AIS data output to my OpenCpn plotter for more detailed AIS target plotting. I normally cruise with the plotter on all the time.

I'd be interested in comments from the panel on that configuration

tarik, Sorry about hijacking your thread - are you just smiling from the sidelines ?
 
A £120 nasa engine and open cpn on a pc , laptop or netbook does give the same features as the vesper on alarms and option for course up etc.
In my opinion the £140 Icom 411 radio takes some beating. The audio quality is very good and the radio easy to use.
So the SH radio at about £320 is a more expensive route and may not be such as good radio.
I think you would always use the AIS on OpenCPN as it is so good.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
A future planned YAPP is no make an AIS receiver to drive my plotter. I hope to get the total component price of the receiver and plotter down to less than £25.
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An interesting project may be an AIS transmitter to send a MOB message to local receivers. This would allow the boat that has just lost a crew overboard to relocate or any other AIS equipped vessel to locate the MOB crew.

This would be much better than the current NASA and raymarine equipment that only indicates the loss of a crew which can in effect be done with any blue tooth device (mobile phone).
 
Rogershaw said:
An interesting project may be an AIS transmitter to send a MOB message to local receivers. This would allow the boat that has just lost a crew overboard to relocate or any other AIS equipped vessel to locate the MOB crew.

This would be much better than the current NASA and raymarine equipment that only indicates the loss of a crew which can in effect be done with any blue tooth device (mobile phone).
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There are quite a few such devices around already.
The big snag for a DIY project would be the need for official approval before it could be put into use.
 
timbartlett said:
The big snag for a DIY project would be the need for official approval before it could be put into use.
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I've heard that you are on excellent terms with civil servants and government officialdom. If I made a DIY AIS transmitter from a recycled record player, some sticky back plastic and a paperclip, could you use your contacts in the DVLA to get it approved for me?
 
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