Over a year ago the FCC approved an AIS Class B transciever on a single board about the size of a poker card. Shouldn't we be seeing some of these boards coming to market about now? Or is the market for existing AIS B units a bit underwhelming to manufacturers?
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Sandy - who are the manufacturers of the poker sized card transceivers?
I think Sandy may mean SRT Marine Technology, which announced the Cobalt mini Class B board last year. And Sandy must be a natural intuitive as fully realized Cobalt products are just now coming to market. See today's entry, and there's more tomorrow:
https://www.panbo.com/archives/2011/06/srts_2011_oem_ais_products_a_boat_load_.html
Sandy, to my knowledge a Cobalt-based Class B just got approved by the FCC. Are you referring to something else?
Hole in one, Ben! But you left out one tiny little tidbit; suggested retail pricing....
Ben, do you, or any readers, have a suggestion for a standalone display for the ais target information which is an available output from my West Marine AIS-1000?
I currently display all the information on my PC based chart plotter software (OpenCPN) and it works great, however, when on long passages, I'd like to monitor the incomming ais signals without the necessity of having the PC powered up, which consumes too much of my available DC power.
There is a second output, for standalone chart plotters, of which I have none, which I'd like to display somewhere. I need a small, cheap, power mizer, LCD or otherwise diplay.
Any ideas?
Fred Roswold, SV Wings, South Africa
Fred, the original Vesper WatchMate display -- now model 670 in the line -- is designed to do exactly what you want. Plus it has the smartest, most flexible AIS target alarming I've seen. Vesper here: http://goo.gl/3l7BC
And my experience testing the model 750 (same display with receiver built in) here: http://goo.gl/DplN7
Note too that Vesper has added an anchor watch function to all three current models: http://goo.gl/x1rVg
Fred: a number of my cruiser buddies are quite happy mounting a small full function GPS plotter at the helm for long offshore passages: They draw a minimum of power and that can be reduced by dimming the screen. A strong candidate is the Garmin 400 series. It will accept and depict AIS targets and computer CPA and TCPA. You can set a proximity alarm and wire it to any buzzer/beeper/whoopee cushion you like. You can buy it with US or European charts, and update them. It will drive an autopilot, interact with your DSC VHF, and fill in for a larger plotter if the need arises.