Cheapest, simplest plotter/AIS product?

[prv]

I find that behaving as if you are a PDV is the reasonable position to take wrt stand on or not, unless you really switch your vessel type on AIS when sailing or motor sailing.

If I could then I certainly would. But sadly AIS Class B doesn't have the navigation status field that allows a vessel to say whether it's sailing or motoring. This seems like an obvious deficiency in the spec to me, but it's too late now.

Pete

 

[Zing]

Big ships can barely change their course for you anyway. And most won't bother to if they can. Your safety is your own responsibility and the point of AIS - and of a lookout - is to know who's around so you avoid them - not to advertise your position and leave it to others to avoid you. Especially not tankers.

Spare the cash from the transponder upgrade. Sorry.

As others have explained, this is wrong. It is terrible advice. The tanker will see you and turn usually before you notice him as a danger. In good conditions he will have turned three deg to stbd about 10 mm out. Also, you don't always avoid him, usually in fact you are the stand on vessel and must stand on. If you have AIS that advertises you as a yacht and makes it unambiguous to him that you are the stand on vessel.

 

[Pye_End]

Personally, for offshore, I find an uncluttered single display (such as the NASA 'radar', or the page on the i70) with rings more useful. Offshore, the place you really want it is down below, so no worry over weather proofing. The NASA will take an alarm so you can set a guard zone and sleep. Targets on a chartplotter are harder to pick out of the other information.

However, for fog work in a coastal environment, having a display outside is also invaluable, especially if you are single handed.

Targets on the plotter I sometimes find useful to see where they are in relation to complex shipping channels eg Thames Estuary, but offshore it is the NASA display for me.

 

[GHA]

Personally, for offshore, I find an uncluttered single display (such as the NASA 'radar', or the page on the i70) with rings more useful. Offshore, the place you really want it is down below, so no worry over weather proofing. The NASA will take an alarm so you can set a guard zone and sleep. Targets on a chartplotter are harder to pick out of the other information.

However, for fog work in a coastal environment, having a display outside is also invaluable, especially if you are single handed.

Targets on the plotter I sometimes find useful to see where they are in relation to complex shipping channels eg Thames Estuary, but offshore it is the NASA display for me.

Done many an offshore mile solo with the nasa, and yes - works fine offshore. But looking forward to trying out the Raspberry Pi on an ocean passage, a downside of the Nasa is it only has an alarm set on a radius so if there's a ship transmitting anywhere within 5 miles (what it was set to) then the alarm will go off, which effectively means you're awake until the ship disappears off the other side of the screen. Opencpn has much more sophisticated alarm options based on CPA & TCPA.
Plus the AIS display on OpenCPN must be as good as there is, all for 0.3A

 

[dk]

.

So - what plotter can I easily connect a NASA AIS engine to ?

- W

Any plotter that accepts NMEA0183 at 38400baud - ie. almost all. If you want to use a tablet then you'll need the AIS signal output via wifi. Do you actually have a plotter already or are you looking for one?

 

[BelleSerene]

As others have explained, this is wrong. It is terrible advice. The tanker will see you and turn usually before you notice him as a danger. In good conditions he will have turned three deg to stbd about 10 mm out. Also, you don't always avoid him, usually in fact you are the stand on vessel and must stand on. If you have AIS that advertises you as a yacht and makes it unambiguous to him that you are the stand on vessel.

I do agree with you, Zing. I just find that for some users there’s a thin line between buying that extra safety factor that you describe, and assuming that because you’re advertising your presence your safety is taken care of by larger vessels. I probably overstated my case.

 

[pagoda]

i think a straw poll of those of us with friends on the bridge of commercial shipping would be interesting. My contact with a ferry OOW basically told me they make no use of AIS, but use radar and eyeballs. They are obliged to transmit AIS, but that's about it. The big ship helmsman is unlikely to have AIS in front of him?

 

[GHA]

i think a straw poll of those of us with friends on the bridge of commercial shipping would be interesting. My contact with a ferry OOW basically told me they make no use of AIS, but use radar and eyeballs. They are obliged to transmit AIS, but that's about it. The big ship helmsman is unlikely to have AIS in front of him?

Where does the ferry sail?

There was a thread linked to on a big ships forum where the general consensus from ships crew was that they liked it when we transmit.

Found it - AIS is used and filtering uncommon.

http://forum.gcaptain.com/t/ais-how-do-you-use-it-vs-small-vessles/10583/34

 

[dave_gibsea]

I've a Standard Horizon VHF with an AIS receiver. I had to replace the VHF anyway so cost about £150-ish extra for the AIS capability.

I feed the AIS data, along with all the rest, into a tablet running OpenCPN and the VisitMyHarbour Admiralty charts. £32 for charts IIRC.

I like the sound of this solution but by what means do you "feed the AIS data" into the tablet? Also, what tablet are you using (is there a preferred one)?

 

[webcraft]

Any plotter that accepts NMEA0183 at 38400baud - ie. almost all. If you want to use a tablet then you'll need the AIS signal output via wifi. Do you actually have a plotter already or are you looking for one?

I have a Garmin GPSmap 450 - could I interface the NASA AIS engine to that?
If so, how? The plotter just has a single data/power cable going into a multiplug at the back. I've read a couple of threads and it sounds like a black art rather than something systematic.

- W

 

[dk]

I have a Garmin GPSmap 450 - could I interface the NASA AIS engine to that?
If so, how? The plotter just has a single data/power cable going into a multiplug at the back. I've read a couple of threads and it sounds like a black art rather than something systematic.

- W

Yes. The NMEA0183 AIS output connects to the G450's NMEA0183 input on the data/power cable. It'll probably be on input port 2 (Violet wire), which is usually (although not always) set up to 38,400 bps baud rate. If it doesn't work you'll need to go into setup on the Garmin and set the baud rate to 38400, which is a simple on/off soft switch I believe.

 

[webcraft]

.
Standard Horizon combined VHF/GPS/AIS looks like the way to go. And there is a repeater unit for the cockpit.

- W

 

[prv]

I've read a couple of threads and it sounds like a black art rather than something systematic

That’s because many of the people doing it are numpties. You build websites, you can cope with connecting three or four wires.

Pete

 

[LadyInBed]

That’s because many of the people doing it are numpties. You build websites, you can cope with connecting three or four wires.

Pete

Ah! The HW / SW divide

 

[webcraft]

That’s because many of the people doing it are numpties. You build websites, you can cope with connecting three or four wires.

Pete

You are right. Don't know why I have been putting it off for years. I already have the GPS128 connected to the VHF on Fairwinds, and I managed that OK. Always seems a shame to butcher cables and twist wires together - why aren't there plugs for these things?

- W

 

[BelleSerene]

You are right. Don't know why I have been putting it off for years. I already have the GPS128 connected to the VHF on Fairwinds, and I managed that OK. Always seems a shame to butcher cables and twist wires together - why aren't there plugs for these things?

- W

There are.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Draper-E...per-Tool-Kit-Set/400934971628?epid=2255390532
Don't go just twisting wires together on a boat unless you're going to solider them: they'll oxidise in the salty air and you'll end up with a fault.