No import charges other than VAT, China Post was more expensive than DHL. The likely doorstep cost will be £230 but last time I did this for an item from the US there was no VAT charged.
It's kind of fun doing a bit of research and hunting the thing down. I could pay £650 for a well known badged one but I don't want to, others do. We have this image of western companies taking a design to a Chinese manufacturer and asking them to produce it. Increasingly these days the larger Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers design products and offer them to western companies with big brands. It's almost identical to a less well spec'd Furuno product, does that mean China designed it then offered it to Furuno, or Furuno designed it and these are some pre-Furuno version copies coming to the marketplace? I have no idea, I make no recommendation or judgement; frankly I haven't a clue. I checked the CE certification and that's way more than I would do for a piece of kit I was buying from my local Chandlers or online outfit!
If others want to buy one the details are in the first post in this thread and they should try to find out which is the best courier for them; I chose DHL because they were the easiest and cheapest to use and other people will prefer China Post; this thread isn't a recommendation to do what I've done, just a head's up of what's possible.
Ironic that it's about a unit which has a function that I don't value - the transponder - I think I'll label my transponder blip:
"See YBW thread on transponders"
As Lazy Kipper said no. But bear in mind that you will need a separate antenna. I have the Standard Horizon Gx2100 VHF and AIS and of course it does not show up on that as same MMSI, but I was wondering if I would wonder if the AIS signal is actually going out (eg if the antenna connection is good). Of course you can use an old VHF radio (or 2m FM receiver of any kind) tuned to the AIS channels to pick it up as a sort of burst of hiss every few minutes, or better still ask a friend if it shows up on their display.
I could also check on one of the Internet sites, but seeds of doubt have been planted as to whether this particular avenue is worth pursuing, or given the march of progress, waiting till a UK sourced unit comes down to a reasonable price, or Angus does a YAPP at about fifty squids.
I think so too, especially now the US patent has been struck out presumably the EU ones will fall too. If you can wait do.
I am prepared to be corrected but I have always thought that Class B technology is not based on SOTDMA but is Carrier Sense Time Division Multiple Access (CSTDMA), which was developed later than Class A to circumvent the original patent because the SOTDMA licence fee kept the cost of AIS available only to the commercial sector.
Correct, it is only Class A.
:encouragement: