I want AIS

I've changed my opinion on the usefulness AIS following conversations with Thames Estuary tugmasters. They found AIS very handy for finding their customers, in the mass of other targets. They said that they looked at the AIS display as much as the Radar.

I've fitted the Digital Yacht/Open CPN/Cmap arrangement.
 
RobBrown said:
I use a laptop with a Comar USB AIS with both AIS capability on the Imray Digital Chartplotter and also Shiplotter. The latter is shareware and costs about £20 to sign on after trial. Link is here:

http://www.coaa.co.uk/shipplotter.htm.

It is a little flaky to set up and run on my PC, but good functionality- eg gives range approach alarm & CPA, which the IDC AIS does not, but you will need to scan charts in unless you have old Maptech BSB charts, which it can handle. If it does recognise Imray charts, I have not been able to find out how!

Edit Apologies- just noted Genoa said most of this earlier in the thread, but at least I can confirm it!
Click to expand...

Would it be possible to take a screen-shot of your input/output dialogue from shipplotter so I can see how you have it set up? Do you set the AIS input to one of the NMEA serial input options?

Thanks

TudorSailor
 
We have had AIS and radar for the last 2 years and get far more use out of the AIS - so AIS is the better choice in my view. And thats from experiencea sailing from Yarmouth to Largs, also round Ireland, and the West of Scotland. We have only needed the radar in thick fog / mist for fishing boats and thats been 2/3 times each season.

One comment I would make is that the AIS graphics should really be readily visible to you all the time so that you can see ships, and buoys, before the AIS alarm goes off. A portable computer is really not the best for this as will normally be down below, also its a BIG power consumer. Whilst AIS draws practically no extra power the source you display it on needs to be a major consideration.

Another disadvantage of radar is its power requirement, hence why we only have radar on when needed ( bad visibility ) whereas AIS is on all the time.
 
snowleopard said:
I am fully aware of how the two function and the info they provide. The question is how to get the info onto a screen in a cost-efficient manner.
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<wrong thread>
If you had an iPhone, you could try ShipFinder for a couple of quid, then progress from there... ;-)
</wt>

An ANT200 feeding a cockpit-mounted SH 180 plotter works for me.
 
I had a stand-alone NASA AIS and after using and liking AIS through a plotter down to NW Spain 3 seasons ago, I then bought an AIS engine and I run that through my little SH plotter.
It surely depends upon where you intend sailing. For instance, if you were to attempt a circumnavigation of GB you may encounter such varied conditions that radar would give you better information. Having got your radar it would then be relatively inexpensive to add an AIS engine.
I'm now in the position of really liking the idea of having radar, but which one? I like the sound of the Broadband radar which uses less power and seems good value but needs to be run through a Lawrence or co' screen..... what suggestions?
Space and size on a small boat is always a problem in the nav area, but I do have a Rutland 913 to help the battery charge.
 
For tudorsailor query- further reply

As "boat" laptop is at home and AIS unit is on the boat, I cannot get a display of I/O dialogue with the AIS running, but if it is of any help, the Shipplotter I/O settings for the AIS are set up on the Serial Input dialogue box with enable NMEA1 box only ticked, Port 4 and rate 38400.
 
RobBrown said:
As "boat" laptop is at home and AIS unit is on the boat, I cannot get a display of I/O dialogue with the AIS running, but if it is of any help, the Shipplotter I/O settings for the AIS are set up on the Serial Input dialogue box with enable NMEA1 box only ticked, Port 4 and rate 38400.
Click to expand...

Does this mean you do not have GPS/NMEA input for your laptop?

For reasons that I do not understand I have various things showing in com port 1-4. I will experiment to see what stops working if I re-asign one so that COMAR serial converter appears in low com port number.

Comar unit is back with Comar at present as I was getting interference with my VHF. I am not on board until mid-July so will wait and see.

Thanks for the input

TudorSailor
 
my GPS input into the laptop is usually via a bluetooth "puck" GPS & a USB bluetooth dongle, which in the Input/Output dialogue is enabled in Input Local GPS Input, port 10 rate 9600.

I sometimes use the Garmin 128 on the boat, to which I have added a serial-usb converter lead and so connect to the laptop via a usb port, as for the Comar AIS. If any recognition problems I usually use Device Manager to identify which port the GPS had been allocated to and change the GPS I/O dialogue to the correct port.
 
I use a truecentre AIS B transponder unit so it sends and receives, and has its own gps mushroom. Computer input comes from rs232 and converter to USB. I use Nimble Navigator (95 usdollars) which comes complete with world charts.
 
I'm sitting on a 103m long DP vessel working on a subsea cable midway between Thames Estuary and Netherlands. We had thick fog a couple of nights ago.
There were several sailing yachts calling up on the VHF during the night trying to identify vessels bearing down on them - either spotted them on radar or just heard engine noises (hope there was no-one out that night without radar!).
With AIS you can see what is happening and get a name tag, speed and heading, so that a specific vessel can be called up.
I would certainly have one on my boat if considering sailing in busy waters.

If you have internet access, have a look at www.marinetraffic.com/ais to get an idea of what AIS is about, but I wouldn't recommend it for live boating purposes.

As an aside, could I make a plea to all yacht skippers - we have had several yachts make very close passes of us whilst we are on DP. We may look as though we are stationery, but we have the ability and sometimes the need to move in any direction - even sideways - without any warning. We would ask that all vessels give us and any other working vessel at least half mile clearance.

Thanks
 
Snowleopard

Yes - I believe I could upload way points up to the 128 from the laptop, but I dont bother doing so as I have a separate removable Garmin182 C chartplotter in the cockpit and run route planning and way points on that. I use the laptop principally for the real time AIS and as a secondary chartplotter, as the 182C doesn't take AIS input (too old for that!)
 
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