AIS NMEA & SeaTalk

[vseager]

I'm looking at fitting AIS. All the electronics at the moment are Raymarine (E8 Chartplotter and ST70 instrument & autopilot displays).

I'm not sure if I should be buying a Raymarine AIS transceiver, or any other brand. What are your setups, and opinions. My queries mostly revolve around...

- Raymarine should be very much plug and play with the SeaTalk interface.
- Will it be a pain to get different manufacturers to talk to each other?
- Will I loose out on any features that the raymarine unit would give me?
- Will it be as reliable in the long term with software upgrade etc?
- If I don't use Raymarine, what is the best unit?

 

[ianj99]

I'm looking at fitting AIS. All the electronics at the moment are Raymarine (E8 Chartplotter and ST70 instrument & autopilot displays).

I'm not sure if I should be buying a Raymarine AIS transceiver, or any other brand. What are your setups, and opinions. My queries mostly revolve around...

- Raymarine should be very much plug and play with the SeaTalk interface.
- Will it be a pain to get different manufacturers to talk to each other?
- Will I loose out on any features that the raymarine unit would give me?
- Will it be as reliable in the long term with software upgrade etc?
- If I don't use Raymarine, what is the best unit?

It makes sense to stick to one make and the AIS500 class B transceiver is not too costly at £600 with Nmea and Seatalkng + a built in multiplexer.

 

[David2452]

For the E8 you can buy any AIS that is N2K and it will be plug and play, the Garmin one is good and has an integral splitter that works well.

 

[nigelmercier]

I'd look seriously at one of these: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?385367-Matsutec-HP-33A-AIS-Transponder

 

[vseager]

I'd look seriously at one of these: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?385367-Matsutec-HP-33A-AIS-Transponder

Looks interesting, but seems rather hard to get hold of in the UK?

 

[nigelmercier]

Looks interesting, but seems rather hard to get hold of in the UK?

Not at all, just order from China. There is a link to the "ordering" thread in the one I posted.

 

[superheat6k]

Please, whatever option you go for, don't turn it on to show your position in the Solent on a clear day. Don't worry we can all see you, just can't see anything else on the chartplotter for the clutter of class B transponder triangles. IMHO AIS class B a waste of space in crowded waters.

Would perhaps be an idea if someone could invent an AIS receiver that could distinguish between Class A&B. Perhaps filtering by only accepting data from larger vessels declaring above a certain length in their AIS transmission data. After all the real value for Class B is to be seen by larger vessels when offshore, but then I guess they would filter just the same.

 

[vseager]

Please, whatever option you go for, don't turn it on to show your position in the Solent on a clear day. Don't worry we can all see you, just can't see anything else on the chartplotter for the clutter of class B transponder triangles. IMHO AIS class B a waste of space in crowded waters.

Would perhaps be an idea if someone could invent an AIS receiver that could distinguish between Class A&B. Perhaps filtering by only accepting data from larger vessels declaring above a certain length in their AIS transmission data. After all the real value for Class B is to be seen by larger vessels when offshore, but then I guess they would filter just the same.

Despite not having AIS, I sail on boats with it and I couldn't agree with you more. I don't have radar and would like it mostly as a safety measure for big ships on cross channel trips and in bad visibility. I nearly always avoid bad visibility but a short trip a couple of weeks ago from Haslar over to Bembridge in very poor visibility, being able to hear hovercraft and fast cats from what seemed like all directions reminded me how useful it would be to have AIS.


The Matsutec HP-33A looks like great value and I like the idea of having a second display that I can mount on the chart table, but there are two things putting me off... it's not NMEA 2000 compatible, and (being a gadget man) I can't make sense of buying old technology, it would also mean converting the signal to match my plotter. The second is that it has it's own GPS receiver, which most AIS transponders seem to have. My plotter is already receiving a GPS fix so it would be annoying that the two would be reading from different position data, not to mention a waste of power.

 

[knuterikt]

it's not NMEA 2000 compatible, and (being a gadget man) I can't make sense of buying old technology, it would also mean converting the signal to match my plotter. The second is that it has it's own GPS receiver, which most AIS transponders seem to have. My plotter is already receiving a GPS fix so it would be annoying that the two would be reading from different position data, not to mention a waste of power.

I agree that NMEA 2000 is better if you have or plan to buy other electronics with NMEA 2000 (or Seatalk NG or whatever they call it).
There are some AIS transponders with both NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 connection.
I have a em-trak b100
That have
one NMEA 2000 port
one NMEA 0183 38400 baud port for connecting to a plotter (or other display) that does not support NMEA 2000, AIS need a high speed connection.
one NMEA 0183 4800 baud port
from the manual

The AIS transceiver has a high speed port which operates at 38400 baud and a low speed port which operates at 4800 baud. The high speed port is intended primarily to connect to a chart
plotter, while the low speed port is intended to connect to other NMEA0183 devices. The ports
have bidirectional multiplexing, which means any messages which are received via the high
speed are automatically transmitted via the low speed port and vice-versa. This is particularly
useful when using a chart plotter having only a single NMEA0183 port as any other sensor such
as a gyro-compass can be connected to the AIS transceiver via the low speed port and the AIS
transceiver can be connected via the high speed port to the chart plotter resulting in the chart
plotter receiving both AIS information and heading information simultaneously. Please ensure
your equipment is configured to use the correct baud rate for the port it is connected to.

But you will have a hard time finding a Class B AIS transponder w/o GPS as it is a requirement for Class B transponders to have their own dedicated GPS is a requirement.

 

[AliM]

We have a Raymarine C90w plotter and a EasyAIS receiver- onlyAIS. They were installed 3 years ago, and worked perfectly for a year. Then we started to get an odd problem - on some days, particularly when there were a lot of boats about, the AIS failed. You could sometimes reboot, and it worked again, but often it just gave up. The instruments were under guarantee, so we had a Raymarine man send the chart plotter back, and eventually replace it - the problem persisted, then a new AIS was tried - no change, then we suspected the aerial, and spent sometime up the mast making sure the connections were all good - not the solution. So recently we bought an emergency aerial. Last week, crossing the North Sea, the AIS failed, so we plugged in the emergency aerial, which worked until daybreak, and then failed in exactly the same way. We have just been talking to people in the Netherlands, and they reckon that there are 2 solutions - either install an old version of the Raymarine software which uses NMEA 0183 throughout, or buy the Raymarine AIS.

So, to the OP - I would suggest you go for the Raymarine AIS, because then you just have one set of experts to consult if it doesn't work, rather than each blaming the other instrument!

If anyone else has any light to cast on this problem, we'd be very grateful to hear it! The installation of the old software failed, and we expect to struggle on with the present system until we replace the AIS in the winter when we have more time and money.

 

[vseager]

After much delay and thought I think I'm going to go for the digital yacht AIT2000 Transceiver. Its a lot cheaper than the Raymarine unit and the reviews are good.

Can anyone offer advice on connecting its NMEA 2K interface with my current SeaTalk NG backbone? Is it just a case of connecting it into the backbone with a t piece and Devicenet cable?

The Raymarine site seems to give lots of examples on connecting old and new Raymarine gear and mentions the devicenet cable is needed for other NMEA devices but I can't find any diagrams actually showing how you go about connecting it?

 

[ianj99]

After much delay and thought I think I'm going to go for the digital yacht AIT2000 Transceiver. Its a lot cheaper than the Raymarine unit and the reviews are good.

Can anyone offer advice on connecting its NMEA 2K interface with my current SeaTalk NG backbone? Is it just a case of connecting it into the backbone with a t piece and Devicenet cable?

The Raymarine site seems to give lots of examples on connecting old and new Raymarine gear and mentions the devicenet cable is needed for other NMEA devices but I can't find any diagrams actually showing how you go about connecting it?

The 6th wire/terminal in the STNG cable is for the old Seatalk data. The other 5 are standard N2K so you just need the appropriate cable.

(I recently purchased an Actisense NGW-STNG Nmea 0183 to STNG interface and the only difference between it and the standard NMEA to N2K version is the N2k to STNG backbone adaptor cable which is provided.)

Ian

 

[knuterikt]

After much delay and thought I think I'm going to go for the digital yacht AIT2000 Transceiver. Its a lot cheaper than the Raymarine unit and the reviews are good.

Can anyone offer advice on connecting its NMEA 2K interface with my current SeaTalk NG backbone? Is it just a case of connecting it into the backbone with a t piece and Devicenet cable?

The Raymarine site seems to give lots of examples on connecting old and new Raymarine gear and mentions the devicenet cable is needed for other NMEA devices but I can't find any diagrams actually showing how you go about connecting it?

Depends on what you have and/or plan to install.
I have a seatalk ng backbone
All t's (t blocks), backbone cable and terminators are seatalk ng.
The device net stuff (AIS ++) have a converter cable that go between the device net plug and the ng T.

The other option is to make a device net back bone segment.

 

[vseager]

Thanks for the info. Currently I have all Raymarine electronics running on SeaTalk NG. I would just like to connect the Digital Yacht AIT2000 into this to be able to display the AIS data on my plotter. Is it just a case of connecting the NMEA 2k output on the AIT2000 to the SeaTalk ng backbone with a T piece anywhere in the backbone?

 

[knuterikt]

Thanks for the info. Currently I have all Raymarine electronics running on SeaTalk NG. I would just like to connect the Digital Yacht AIT2000 into this to be able to display the AIS data on my plotter. Is it just a case of connecting the NMEA 2k output on the AIT2000 to the SeaTalk ng backbone with a T piece anywhere in the backbone?

Yes
with matching plugs/t's