Spec me a new plotter with AIS B transponder

B

Babylon

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Existing kit is a Standard Horizon plotter from 2013 (after which they exited the plotter market), which works fine except the AIS feed from my SH Matrix VHF of the same vintage hasn't worked for years (don't ask!) so I've simply sailed without any effective AIS. Also have a totally separate 2010 Furuno radar, which makes sense to keep separate for redundancy reasons; could upgrade this as well to have single screen overlay, but costs could get excessive - any good arguments to combine or keep separate? Both displays fixed above chart table, which works for me.

Don't want an iPad or tablet-based system, don't want wifi on boat, etc.

Not averse to touch screen stuff, but instinct is to have knobs and buttons as default.

Requirement for AIS B transponder is for when cruising in company so we all know where all others are, but would be interested to know if the transponder side can be switched off when not needed?

How best to proceed? Anything to avoid? I just want a relatively future-proof robust system.
 
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I was very pleased with my onwa plotter with ais. The inbuilt k charts were fine, but I put a navionics card in and was very happy. I'd say that's the best bang for buck plotter at the moment.

I have a raymarine element 7 on the boat at the moment. It's pesky. It never really seems happy with n2k and is forever deciding not to talk any more. I'd get another onwa if I wasnt going the opencpn route.
 
Which SH plotter? In ~2014 we fitted a SH CP300 on our Ovni to which we plumbed a Digital Yacht AIS transponder. I remember having to do a firmware update via a card from SH to get it fully working properly as there was some AIS display glitch in the original plotter firmware, but beyond that worked perfectly and was still working perfectly when we sold the boat in ~2022. I have a CP300i on my little Hardy motor boat and love them as plotters, so haven't bothered to upgrade that one yet!

Most AIS transponders will have a "silence" button so you can choose not to transmit, and/or the ability to wire up a simple switch to silence the transmit function.
 
paulbrown22 said:
Which SH plotter? In ~2014 we fitted a SH CP300 on our Ovni to which we plumbed a Digital Yacht AIS transponder. I remember having to do a firmware update via a card from SH to get it fully working properly as there was some AIS display glitch in the original plotter firmware, but beyond that worked perfectly and was still working perfectly when we sold the boat in ~2022. I have a CP300i on my little Hardy motor boat and love them as plotters, so haven't bothered to upgrade that one yet!

Most AIS transponders will have a "silence" button so you can choose not to transmit, and/or the ability to wire up a simple switch to silence the transmit function.
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Yes, the CP300, a super little unit... but after working properly for a couple of years the AIS glitched (fed from the SH Matrix VHF). I had long discussions with a wizard engineer from SH to try to fix it, but by that point they had exited the market and it was ultimately insoluble according to him!

Maybe using a separate transponder as you did could have been made to work, but that's all ancient history now, and I'm looking to starting again with kit that's current and relatively future-proof.
 
toothless said:
I was very pleased with my onwa plotter with ais. The inbuilt k charts were fine, but I put a navionics card in and was very happy. I'd say that's the best bang for buck plotter at the moment.

I have a raymarine element 7 on the boat at the moment. It's pesky. It never really seems happy with n2k and is forever deciding not to talk any more. I'd get another onwa if I wasnt going the opencpn route.
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I'd not heard of Onwa before... will have a look. I was going to look at Raymarine at first instance, maybe B&G or Lowrance, never much liked Garmin's interface... don't want to find the last fish in the English Channel or have engine temp readouts on the screen, the LCD on the coaming tells me depth and I know which way the wind's blowing by which buttock is colder... just want a basic chartplotter that's easy and intuitive to use, stable and robust, that displays the chart information and has a compass-rose with TTG etc... and has a Class B AIS bolted to it.

I'm very minded to get a local firm to supply and fit it all for me... will see what they say about Onwa.
 
Babylon said:
I'd not heard of Onwa before... will have a look. I was going to look at Raymarine at first instance, maybe B&G or Lowrance, never much liked Garmin's interface... don't want to find the last fish in the English Channel or have engine temp readouts on the screen, the LCD on the coaming tells me depth and I know which way the wind's blowing by which buttock is colder... just want a basic chartplotter that's easy and intuitive to use, stable and robust, that displays the chart information and has a compass-rose with TTG etc... and has a Class B AIS bolted to it.

I'm very minded to get a local firm to supply and fit it all for me... will see what they say about Onwa.
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Raymarine is OK, Garmin is better, B&G is crap.

If you "just want a basic chartplotter" that "has a Class B AIS", the Onwa, although it looks dated and a bit clunky to me, is hard to beat for value.
 
PaulRainbow said:
Raymarine is OK, Garmin is better, B&G is crap.

If you "just want a basic chartplotter" that "has a Class B AIS", the Onwa, although it looks dated and a bit clunky to me, is hard to beat for value.
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ONWA are no longer just Class B .. they are B+ .... and the later ONWA are far from loking clunky. They have folled the MFD craze ..

But for a basic unit with AIS B+ and interface that accepts in / out .. they still do the standard style ...

For OP .. if the original Plotter still works and is cockpit mounted .. why not buy a smaller ONWA plotter and then mount to chart area etc .. feed out the AIS etc to your old plotter ? I have my KP39A feeding data / AIS to my Garmin 92sv ... and to my NMEA4WIFI plexor - which gives out all data on Wifi .. NMEA 0183 ... USB and Seatalk. So even guests can logon and get AIS on their phones / tablets etc.
 
I've never heard of ONWA so will look at them. Hopefully they run Navionics so could be a cheap fix for the next year.

Ideally I want radar as well but I baulk at the £2.6K cost of the MDF and then another £££ for the radar but suspect that is what I'm going to spend. I don't want to go for separate displays for plotter and radar like on my last boat.
 
Boathook said:
I've never heard of ONWA so will look at them. Hopefully they run Navionics so could be a cheap fix for the next year.

Ideally I want radar as well but I baulk at the £2.6K cost of the MDF and then another £££ for the radar but suspect that is what I'm going to spend. I don't want to go for separate displays for plotter and radar like on my last boat.
Click to expand...

Having had radar and chart plotter displays fail, fortunately at different times, I'm a firm believer on stand alone displays. Don't like the idea of everything disappearing when MFD fails.
 
Graham376 said:
Having had radar and chart plotter displays fail, fortunately at different times, I'm a firm believer on stand alone displays. Don't like the idea of everything disappearing when MFD fails.
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There are very few stand alone radars available these days though and they don't come cheap. For instance, an 8" Furuno costs more than an Axion Plus9 with Quantum radar.
 
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