Stand-alone AIS

doug748 said:
Bit of mission creep here I think.

The man does not want to know which is best at any price, rather is the £200 receiver any good?
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Exactly. My budget is pretty limited these days. Basically it's a Nasa type receiver or do without, with the possible option of hooking an AIS engine into an old laptop with OpenCPN.
 
snowleopard said:
Exactly. My budget is pretty limited these days. Basically it's a Nasa type receiver or do without, with the possible option of hooking an AIS engine into an old laptop with OpenCPN.
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If I was buying again I would go for another stand alone reciever. Laptops are great but mine (for nav) always seems to loose the gps some sort of hang up just when you really need it. Ais reciever just sits quietly in the corner constantly doing it's one task very well.
 
prv said:
The ahead / behind distinction is interesting to me. I have a CP180i that I occasionally plug in (prefer paper for most purposes) and just before the Scuttlebutt trip I got one of those ANT200 AIS antenna units to connect to it.

The combination worked in that ships showed up on screen, and I could hover the cursor over them for more information, but I was a bit disappointed in what it actually showed. No info on how far away the ship was, for instance, or many of the other AIS fields I'm used to seeing on Web displays. My main complaint was that although it did show a CPA and TCPA, it didn't say whether this would be ahead or astern of the ship. My tolerance distance for crossing astern is a lot closer than for crossing ahead!

Anyone else have this plotter - was I just missing something?

Pete
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Yes - have the same plotter and the same complaint ... however seeing the Garmin 4008 in action I'd have similar complaints as it doesn't tell you that info either!

As it happened, for the scuttlebutt crossings we were able to see the ship and judge by eye whether it we'd be in front or behind ... we confirmed this with a change in speed but not course - then checked to see if CPA grew or shrunk ... but yes, it should tell you !!
 
fireball said:
seeing the Garmin 4008 in action I'd have similar complaints as it doesn't tell you that info either!
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I guess that's a comfort in a way. I didn't buy the only AIS-lemon plotter out there :)

Most of the features on the Watchmate, I more or less assumed were standard on any plotter once you gave it a source of AIS data. Turns out to be far from the case.

Pete
 
I wouldn't call either of them Lemon plotters - just they don't offer what I would consider the right information! Nor do they seem to give options for customising the display.

The Standard Horizon CP180i shows minimal AIS target information in a pop up window when you hover the cursor over a target - I would like to include the bearing to CPA too in this window.
AIS alarms have the AIS target go red and an alarm window pop up with the DSC number, name (if available), CPA and TCPA info - it would be handy to have a Bearing to target at this point too!

The Garmin 4008 (that I haven't used extensively!) uses soft menus that change as you go over various objects on a chart - so you have to take the cursor over a target (which seemed quite sensitive) then press the appropriate soft menu button to have a look at the details. CPA could be on the second page of details - requiring a further button!
The Garmin's information was far more comprehensive - which I liked, but didn't do the pop-up vital information that was (all that was) available on the Standard Horizon. I didn't like the fact that you had to hunt for the CPA and TCPA - but it did at least have the bearing to target.

Neither system allows customisation of the AIS display - although the Garmin system does allow you to turn off the AIS overlay display totally...

The software authors don't seem to be sailors themselves and so have created systems that don't quite fullfill the average sailors requirements.
 
fireball said:
I wouldn't call either of them Lemon plotters - just they don't offer what I would consider the right information!
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I didn't mean to call it a lemon overall - as a plotter it's quite good given the limitation of screen size. Just that the AIS part seems a bit of an afterthought, designed by someone who couldn't really imagine the situation in which it would be used.

Pete
 
prv said:
Just that the AIS part seems a bit of an afterthought, designed by someone who couldn't really imagine the situation in which it would be used.
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I think that can be applied to many of the dedicated plotters!

On the laptops OpenCPN has (so far) the best rendition of AIS information - including a visual indication on rate of turn - and as it shows predicted track with time/distance markers you can see if you're going to pass ahead or astern.
 
fireball said:
I think that can be applied to many of the dedicated plotters!

On the laptops OpenCPN has (so far) the best rendition of AIS information
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OpenCPN does seem to have a lot of fans. I guess it's not really surprising that an open source system would work better than proprietary here - it's classic itch-scratching territory.

That said, I have no desire whatsoever to carry a laptop on KS - apart from anything else there just isn't room. I also like using paper charts for most purposes - the CP180 is on a portable bracket and is only set up and turned on for tricky channels and the like.

Pete
 
Quite agree - a laptop onboard is a powerdrain and certainly not the best marine instrument you'll get ...
What you need is an 8" waterproof display with a netbook motherboard behind that can run OpenCPN without it looking or feeling like a PC ...

There are VHF sets coming out with AIS built in - some have basic graphic displays and CPA alarms too - this is probably the way forwards
 
fireball said:
The Standard Horizon CP180i shows minimal AIS target information in a pop up window when you hover the cursor over a target - I would like to include the bearing to CPA too in this window.
AIS alarms have the AIS target go red and an alarm window pop up with the DSC number, name (if available), CPA and TCPA info - it would be handy to have a Bearing to target at this point too!
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Doesn't the CP180i show course vectors for active and dangerous targets?
 
fireball said:
What you need is an 8" waterproof display with a netbook motherboard behind that can run OpenCPN without it looking or feeling like a PC
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I wouldn't want something like that either on KS. But yes, I suspect it would be a good choice if I were fitting out a bigger boat and wanted a more electronic way of working.

Does OpenCPN have much in the way of support for alternative input devices, or is it all very tied to mouse and keyboard assumptions?

Pete
 
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