Northstar VHF, new and for real
Northstar has just announced two new black box VHF radios—its first communications products ever, I think— and, by gosh, the things actually exist already. The single station NS100 is illustrated above, and there’s also a dual station model with foghorn/hailer/intercom. The radios aren’t even on Northstar’s site yet but I got the single station unit to test in yesterday’s mail. I just had a first look, and, while it is manufactured in China, the fit and finish seem exceptional. I’m told that the design and engineering are entirely Northstar’s, and I look forward to checking it out. I don’t see anything revolutionary in the spec sheet, but I’m hoping to find high performance and a good interface. (I’m also trying a Uniden 525 and two WHAMx4 wireless mics, which should make an interesting comparison. Plus, while I was away, Sitex sent up an eLoran and a black box AIS receiver. I’ve got some shop time ahead getting all this stuff running.)
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When are AIS receivers and VHF tranceivers going to be integrated? Seems obvious to have one VHF antenna and power source for VHF reception. The VHF radio could have a USB connector for the AIS data to my Mac Powerbook.
I know Seacas is coming out with an integrated GPS/AIS receiver, but the addition of VHF voice transmission makes allot of sense.