AIS permanently on, do you?

oldmanofthehills said:
An Airtag would work just as well and would avoid the information overload of AIS cluttering up the ethersphere so that skippers using AIS cannot quickly distinguish moving boats / ships they need to keep clear of, for boats moored in their normal places. Devonport and other crowded harbours are a nightmare at night as nearly every single thing comes up as something that could be a collision hazard on one tack or the other. Miles out at sea there is no problem as AIS few and being 100m from a container vessel is cause for concern, unlike nearing moorings when proximity to something is the norm
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Airtags have a tiny range so unlikely to be useful.
AIS is certainly not useful in pilotage scenarios such as marinas so why would you care?
 
Surely a chart plotter should not be relied on for navigation in a marina nor should AIS be a tool that is relied upon in a marina. . Not every boat has AIS so keeping a watch for moving boats has to be the old school eyeball method,
But those who do find AIS clutter in a marina a nuisance could always turn off their own AIS and that would solve the clutter problem.
 
Momac said:
Surely a chart plotter should not be relied on for navigation in a marina nor should AIS be a tool that is relied upon in a marina. . Not every boat has AIS so keeping a watch for moving boats has to be the old school eyeball method,
But those who do find AIS clutter in a marina a nuisance could always turn off their own AIS and that would solve the clutter problem.
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Moving boats aren't a problem no those just arriving and leaving. It's the boats moored up that seemingly never move are the problem.
 
Boathook said:
It's the boats moored up that seemingly never move are the problem
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Can you describe the problem? You’re not using your AIS when piloting in or near a marina, so how does it affect you if someone leaves their AIS transmitting?
 
I’ve found that in crowded waters the Doppler radar is an excellent tool for cutting through the mass of targets to identify which vessels deserve close attention and monitoring. This also neatly avoids the problem of boats not transmitting an AIS signal (often FVs) and erroneous AIS data (in local waters I’ve seen RoRo ferries display a direction which is 180deg in error).
Then AIS is excellent for further offshore work such as determining whether that container ship on the horizon might be an issue or not.

My point with the laid up vessel AIS transmissions is simply why? What purpose does it serve? To me it just seems unnecessary and wasteful.
 
Why not? Some people see value in having it on and it has no impact on others so let them do what they like.
 
lustyd said:
Why not? Some people see value in having it on and it has no impact on others so let them do what they like.
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Of course they can do entirely as they wish, the question that I am asking is not intended as a criticism, I was simply asking why people do it? As you say, some people see value in leaving it active, I am asking what is that value? I'm trying to learn, is that not okay?
 
GEM43 said:
Of course they can do entirely as they wish, the question that I am asking is not intended as a criticism, I was simply asking why people do it? As you say, some people see value in leaving it active, I am asking what is that value? I'm trying to learn, is that not okay?
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I imagine more than half of them don't even know they have the AIS on.
Others may want to check their boat is where they left it.
 
lustyd said:
Can you describe the problem? You’re not using your AIS when piloting in or near a marina, so how does it affect you if someone leaves their AIS transmitting?
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Although it is not something that has troubled me in relation to marinas, my AIS was once overloaded when passing a very busy shipping area off Rotterdam and failed to show some new targets. My older set had a capacity of 500 targets I believe, so a yacht in a marina could conceivably cause a vessel relying on AIS, maybe 10-20 miles away, to lose information.
 
johnalison said:
cause a vessel relying on AIS, maybe 10-20 miles away, to lose information
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The system is designed such that closer targets are shown with priority. The display limit is to prevent the plotter from struggling when drawing targets on the display. This will not be an issue.
 
GEM43 said:
I am asking what is that value
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Yes that makes sense. It’s likely many will have various electronics wired together. We leave our Starlink and Cerbo running to monitor various things while away. If I had separate AIS it would be switched with that for convenience so would remain on.
We have a combined VHF though, so switch it off at the VHF when alongside to stop annoying voice traffic. The Cerbo now reports vessel position (and diesel tank level!) so AIS would add very little for us with remote monitoring.
 
Em trak AIS units (maybe others) have the option connection that can be wired to flick a switch for "silent mode", as they call it. It allows the AIS unit to continue to receive target information, but stops transmitting its position. The blurb suggests that it for use in marinas as well as allowing privacy while still enabling collision avoidance functionality.

I usually switch stuff off when in a marina, and always when I leave the boat.
 
lustyd said:
Airtags have a tiny range so unlikely to be useful.
AIS is certainly not useful in pilotage scenarios such as marinas so why would you care?
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Because it all shows on my chart plotter and the AIS icons obscure much detail. Reseting so AIS does not show on chart plotter is slow and liable to error while trying to steer.

Anyway who said only in marinas, I mentioned Devonport and Falmouth and there are big things moving around in the dark that which working AIS helps me keep out of the may of.

Unnecessary signals are just another human generated pollution
 
Given that having AIS equipment is not compulsory for most of us what is ‘not compliant’ about having AIS which loses position e.g. when the plotter is powered down?
 
lustyd said:
The system is designed such that closer targets are shown with priority. The display limit is to prevent the plotter from struggling when drawing targets on the display. This will not be an issue.
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It was on mine. Maybe not on later models but that was not my point.
 
Marsali_1 said:
Clearly it does have impacts on others or there wouldn't be negative commentary about the issue.
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I’d suggest those negative comments are more down to misuse of AIS receivers more than misuse of AIS transmitters. We did thousands of miles this year, much of which was in busy waters and it just isn’t an issue as the very busy places are never where AIS should be a primary tool. It’s nice to see the approach speed of a large ship in Plymouth or the Solent but it doesn’t drastically change anything.
 
SaltyC said:
I've wired my AIS to the plotter from which it gets position. The plotter is turned off in harbour / marina. Hence does not transmit. If anchored in remote places with possibility of dragging plotter is on Anchor alarm and AIS transmitting.
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The ITU spec requires an AIS Transceiver to use its in-built GPS receiver - it's not allowed to take an external GPS feed.
 
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