Electronics - do you , don't you?

[maxi77]

I must admit that if the op is planning an electronics update the first place he has to sort out is the user interface. Ipads are great but unless you can get both a way of inputing external data like ais by with and apps that accept this data there is a need to consider going for a custm marine plotter. Laptops look attractive but they don't like water. Once again radio displays can make good repeaters but in general to do proper work a bigger display is needed. Having said that a full control radio handset at the helm makes minimal crew sailing so much easier.

 

[doug748]

Oh yes he is (it's panto time) - the Standard Horizon thingy is a GPS, which he said he needed.



The thingy is a neat idea, but it's a very limited GPS and a very crude AIS receiver. Incidentally, the HP-33A works fine as an AIS receiver and is still pretty good value in that role. I have given it a rubber duck on the stern pulpit, which in my case was easy to do as I had removed a NASA Navtex ignorer so the holes and gland were there.

If only the OP had wanted something different you idea could have been perfect


BTW SiteSufer where did you find that very keen price? I don't think I will be investing till next year but the best price I saw was over £300.

 

[Ru88ell]

I'm keen to see the OP's NMEA wiring diagram when he gets to it. I've got a Garmin GPSmap 500, Standard Horizon 2100 with AIS, and will get a Raymarine ST2000+. The NMEA connectivity is driving me bananas. I can do a lot of things, but I don't find it simple at all. ( Just to head off all the people saying how easy it is. )

Perhaps people could start putting sketches up to help the OP (and me) ;-)

 

[prv]

I'm keen to see the OP's NMEA wiring diagram when he gets to it.

I think it's going to be very simple - just one channel going from the VHF's AIS output to some kind of wifi box so that the iPad can pick it up.

Pete

 

[GHA]

Interesting. Do you have a WiFi repeater you can recommend?

4 quid plus some bits! (maybe)

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?447158-How-to-use-a-raspberry-pi-for-nmea-over-wifi

 

[Bikesailer]

When I see threads like this I realise how lucky I am that I am satisfied to do my 3500 miles each year with no more than a stand along GPS and AIS receiver and paper charts.

 

[GHA]

When I see threads like this I realise how lucky I am that I am satisfied to do my 3500 miles each year with no more than a stand along GPS and AIS receiver and paper charts.

That, IMHO, really is a big bonus of tablets, a cockpit empty of gadgets if you want, enjoy the real world for a while

 

[JumbleDuck]

If only the OP had wanted something different you idea could have been perfect

He wanted AIS, VHF with DSC and a GPS source ...

I ... would like to consider upgrading to:

• AIS (Possibly transponder but likely recieve only)
• VHF with DSC
• Raymarine ST2000+

So.. in order to get the VHF receiving GPS for the DSC I'll need to hook up a GPS feed, to get the AIS to do anything useful...

... so which bit of that would a Matsutec HP-33A and a cheap DSC radio fail to satisfy, or unreasonably exceed? Of course he may actually like trying to do collision avoidance and identification of ships on a tiny orange screen ...

 

[prv]

He wanted AIS, VHF with DSC and a GPS source ...

...all of which come in one box called a Standard Horizon 2200.

Of course the Matsutec also fits the bill, and adds AIS transmission as a bonus. On the down side, you would then also require:

• a separate VHF
• a GPS antenna (it's included, but you have to install it and run the cable)
• a second VHF antenna and its cable (likely to be a more involved install than the GPS antenna)
• an NMEA link to get the position from the Matsutec to the VHF (this is cheap and conceptually simple (except, apparently, for Russell ), but if you want the AIS in the cockpit where it belongs but the VHF is below, then the wiring run may not be trivial)

Of course this would be a perfectly valid choice, there's value in AIS transmission and this is a sensible way to achieve it on a reasonable budget. But given the downsides, it's not such an obviously better choice as to be the automatic right answer. And indeed the OP has already chosen the simple one-box approach instead, thus indicating where his priorities lie.

Pete

 

[JumbleDuck]

...all of which come in one box called a Standard Horizon 2200.

Indeed, but does it do it well. On the upside, you get one-click DSC calling of an AIS target. On the downside, the AIS display is pretty much useless for anything situational. I certainly don;t think his decision was wrong, and I certainly don't think my decision was right, but I do think it's worth considering getting a fully functioning AIS transceiver and GPS with a nice colour display for seventy quid more.

And indeed the OP has already chosen the simple one-box approach instead, thus indicating where his priorities lie.

Or indicating that he didn't know about the two-box option.

 

[SiteSurfer]

Thanks for the discussion, just to be absolutely clear - my aim is to represent the AIS on my iPad.
I appreciate the discussion about chartplotters and backups etc, but in my case i have the following backup plan i place already in order of failure:

1. iPad2 Air - Primary Navigation - built in GPS
2. iPad 2 WiFi, with BadElf Dongle - backup 1, a bit worrying but we are still ok
3. iPhone6 - backup 2, a slightly tense hush has descended on the crew
4. iPhone5 - backup 3, daughter gets relieved of her phone, this isnt looking good
5. Hudl - desperate backup if really in the clag
6. Paper Charts - all else has failed

I run a variety of apps including Navionics and iSailor (which can recieve AIS data and overlay) and am about to look at iNavx.
Whilst I understand the point about the standalone GPS and AIS, I'll never probably need the GPS on the VHF to be output BUT i definately need it for the DSC, I'm currently also looking at an Arduino on my desk with an ESP 8266 wifi module hanging off a breadboard and am reading up on the NMEA libraries, it looks to me like simply relaying NMEA to UDP for the iPad should be trivial and save me in excess of 200 quid for a wifi server.

 

[GHA]

I'm currently also looking at an Arduino on my desk with an ESP 8266 wifi module hanging off a breadboard and am reading up on the NMEA libraries, it looks to me like simply relaying NMEA to UDP for the iPad should be trivial and save me in excess of 200 quid for a wifi server.

Despite being a huge fan of arduino's, it's actually *much* easier with a raspberry pi, the new Zero costs 4 quid.
USB/Serial adapter for ais - 3 quid a piece
Nano usb wifi adapter - another 3 quid
Just over a tenner the lot.
Probably pulls couple hundred mA. If that.

 

[prv]

Despite being a huge fan of arduino's, it's actually *much* easier with a raspberry pi, the new Zero costs 4 quid.
USB/Serial adapter for ais - 3 quid a piece
Nano usb wifi adapter - another 3 quid
Just over a tenner the lot.

What do you do for the software? Is it as simple as just piping from /dev/tty<n> into UDP with socat or something?

I sort of worry about the robustness of using a full Linux for something like this though, especially without a display to see what's going on. Obviously you'd ruthlessly minimise what services etc run, and have it just fire up your little piping script, but what happens when one day it decides it want to do a fsck at startup or something? And inevitably the installed software will end up hilariously out of date, which is fine on an isolated network, but will it definitely remain isolated when you also want to use the ship's iPad to watch iPlayer on marina wifi?

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with using Linux in small embedded systems, and these aren't real concerns in practice.

Pete

 

[GHA]

What do you do for the software? Is it as simple as just piping from /dev/tty<n> into UDP with socat or something?

I sort of worry about the robustness of using a full Linux for something like this though, especially without a display to see what's going on. Obviously you'd ruthlessly minimise what services etc run, and have it just fire up your little piping script, but what happens when one day it decides it want to do a fsck at startup or something? And inevitably the installed software will end up hilariously out of date, which is fine on an isolated network, but will it definitely remain isolated when you also want to use the ship's iPad to watch iPlayer on marina wifi?

Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with using Linux in small embedded systems, and these aren't real concerns in practice.

Pete

http://www.sailoog.com/en/openplotter

Been perfectly behaved so far 24h a day left on most days. Though still beta, not a full release yet.
Not that much on there, the Openplotter stuff. our own Laika's Kplex & opencpn plus zygrib. SignalK is still beta but if works, pumping out over wifi waiting for the plethora of tablet apps......
Works fine as a wifi bridge as well using another high gain Alfa usb wifi adapter and making that accessible on the local network. Cheaper & lower power consumption than a R36.
But yes, without a screen if it falls over it could be tricky. Or stick another backup SD card in (and another Pi) , cheap enough.


How to....

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?447158-How-to-use-a-raspberry-pi-for-nmea-over-wifi

 

[Gwylan]

We 'up graded' to a Standard Horizon plotter - it was obsolete but gave us a nav facility at the helm. Handy when sailing the boat.
This is connected to a GPS aerial input and we splashed out on the AIS receiver. This means we have AIS on the plotter, at the helm. That seems to me to be the best.
Then we have a gps repeater mostly to steer to and watch the cross track, depth, NASA wind which does not work of course.
Then at the nav station we have a NAVTEX, a NASA baroemter - good for watching trends. The baroemeter should also give trends in the wind, but the head is bust and requires a trip up the mast. There is also a log that runs off the gps and gives us distance run, depth repeater. Then an old, very old Philips GPS that talks to the Yeoman and the paper chart end of the business. I still fear the 'blue screen' of death.

We have an ICom VHF with DSC and a command mike iln the cockpit. The reason for DSC has not become clear to me and the last time I used DSC was doing my VHF licence. The command mike is very handy though. In fact a weatherproof VHF in the cockpit, near the helm, might be more useful.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Indeed, but does it do it well. On the upside, you get one-click DSC calling of an AIS target. On the downside, the AIS display is pretty much useless for anything situational. I certainly don;t think his decision was wrong, and I certainly don't think my decision was right, but I do think it's worth considering getting a fully functioning AIS transceiver and GPS with a nice colour display for seventy quid more.

Or indicating that he didn't know about the two-box option.

I'm with Pete on this. I have my SH radio display on the list of AIS contacts sorted in CPA and feed the NMEA output to my PC running OpenCPN if I want a display of all the AIS contacts around me superimposed onto the chart on my PC display with repeater in the cockpit.

When I upgrade to transponder I will go for one without a display line the Vesper or the one the supplier of the Matsutech seems to have developed but not advertised.

 

[Boo2]

SH 2200e purchased for £280.

Where did you find that price may I ask ?

Boo2

 

[JumbleDuck]

I'm with Pete on this.

I'm not against Pete on this. Obviously if you have a plotting device then a separate AIS display is a bit of an unnecessary embellishment. I still think that AIS transmission is worth it for seventy quid, even with the work of fitting the antennae.

 

[doug748]

I'm not against Pete on this. Obviously if you have a plotting device then a separate AIS display is a bit of an unnecessary embellishment. I still think that AIS transmission is worth it for seventy quid, even with the work of fitting the antennae.

Good show, we are all happy including the OP.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Obviously if you have a plotting device then a separate AIS display is a bit of an unnecessary embellishment.

Yes I have followed the discussions on the Matsutech device with interest but it was the inclusion of the display that put me off as in my case it would be an unnecessary duplication.

I still think that AIS transmission is worth it for seventy quid

If the cost or your Matsutech is only seventy quid (70 GBP) would be interesting even at our s**t exchange rate and I would hope the manufacture bring out a black box AIS Transceiver at an even lower cost.

This is interesting from the same supplier. Any one purchased or enquired any this device or got a price.

http://huayang-tech.en.alibaba.com/.../Matsutec_HA_102_marine_AIS_transpondeur.html