Standard Horizon VHF with AIS

[Ken Juul]

Our YC held a great safety seminar last weekend.  Admiral is now interested in getting a DSC enabled VHF.  Figured I might as well get one with the AIS option.  Two birds with one stone.  Anybody have any experience with them? Ease of hook up? how well does it display on a Raymarine C series plotter? Best place to buy. etc.

[mainesail]

They work great but remember they are only AIS RX not TX. We have the Standard Horizon VHF AIS and it works very well. It is interfaced with a Garmin. I have installed them for a number of customers and interfaced them with other brands too but not a Ray C-Series. I believe you need to newer VHF AIS 2150 not the older 2100 as the baud on the 2150 works better with Ray stuff.

You should understand that this is NOT a replacement for radar. here's a couple of screen shots of how sloooowly it can update especially for class B TX boats.. If this was fog.......




Sorry for the blurry pics but do note the time difference. The move from pic 1 to pic 2 happened in a split second...... Please DO NOT blindly trust AIS actual vessel position in thick fog when the vessels are in close proximity...

[2ndwish]

Ken- We just installed a Matrix 2100. We bought ours at Star Marine for a very good price. They work very well. We have not interfaced it to a chartplotter yet- next on the list. I would echo Mainesail's statement that it is not a replacement for radar and would go one step further. We were headed for Catalina recently and passed through the busy shipping lanes with much traffic. Two of the commercial vessels which were visible were not transmitting AIS (although they are required to do so). One of them was a tug towing a barge. There were about 7 other vessels on the AIS list, so the receiver was working. That raises questions about the whole system if there is not uniform compliance. Anyway, for now we use it as a tool along with our other navigation tools.

As far as DSC goes, that was a little disappointing too. I tried to test the VHF with the LA Coast Guard Rescue 21 system, hailed them  (using the test call feature and their MMSI) and ...nothing. I called their radio office by phone and they told me their system has been down for some time (weeks) and I needed to try San Diego. Ouch!

My guess is that these things are growing pains and the system will get better.

[Bill Sedgwick]

I too am dissapointed in AIS. I like the information provided on boats that are transmitting and believe it is a good aid, but it is not a replacement for RADAR. Last weekend we went from San Diego to Catalina and two ships were not transmitting. Both were 500+ foot ships that should have been indicated. Navy ships also don't appear so its not reliable for collision advoidance.

[jkar]

Just put the GX2150 in and love it.  Hooked it up to my Comar Systems NMEA to WiFI adapter and everything popped up on my iPad.  Took about 30minutes total.  Don't know how it will interface with the Garmin, but you can configure the speed from 38400 to 4800 through the radio and it has all the bare wires. Don't know about the DSC yet, just got my MMSI number and haven't plugged it in yet.  Next step is the RAM3 mic.  I have not had an issue with lag time.  All ships I have see have been transmitting.  I was really anxious about 3 weeks ago when I saw a pair of targets bearing down on me quickly.  They were way out of the standard lanes.  Then I realized it was a pair of the big "sleds" in the same race.  I then used them to "look" up the course once they passed me!  That was really fun, almost like "seeing into the future".  I think you will like it.  Good luck.  Joel