Yesterday I was tickled to learn that Nasa’s AIS Radar and Engine will be marketed in U.S. under the well known Si-Tex brand (thanks, Pascal). That means U.S. sales and support. It also turns out that the Engine will put up AIS targets on a variety of Si-Tex plotters, like the Color Max below (just a mocked up screen). This AIS listener business is moving fast!
Yesterday Roger (a true DYI guy I’ve noted before) commented enthusiastically on Nasa Marine’s “AIS Radar.” It certainly does seem to provide a complete AIS listener for a very reasonable price, about $365, but I have some concerns. The main one is that Nasa “chose to simulate the plan position indicator (PPI) of a conventional radar display” (hence the name). In other words the target vessels are plotted relative to your own boat’s course and speed, not their true course and speed (though that’s shown in the data window). The goal is simplicity; a target on a collision course will generate a trail headed right at you. The problem is the plotting confusion possible when you change course or speed. Plus AIS Radar, like Nasa’s AIS Engine, only uses one frequency at a time—though that may not be an issue. And, finally, it does not support output to a PC. For more information, allGadgets has the manual posted here. Of course, my concerns may be unwarranted; I’d like to hear from users and/or try one myself.
Last year Doug Ritter (right) and his Equipped to Survive Foundation (ETS) did the boating (and outdoors) community a tremendous service by uncovering performance problems in the optional GPS portion of PLBs and EPIRBs made by McMurdo. McMurdo subsequently offered a free upgrade to existing units. ETS now plans to test the upgraded beacons, as well as the latest models from McMurdo and ACR. If you’re in the U.S. and have an unused, but upgraded, McMurdo beacon, ETS wants to swap it for a brand new one and will even send you pre-paid shipping material. The deal sounds pie simple, and you’ll be helping to confirm for all boaters that the upgrade truly did the job. For an idea of how amazingly thorough this testing program is, check out these ETS Web pages.
Update 5/17: Apparently Doug now has enough upgraded beacons.
In addition to Kees’ report yesterday, Dan sent in a link describing another successful test of the Nasa AIS engine, this time in conjunction with GPSNavX charting software for Mac computers. (Thanks, Dan, and I’ll follow up on your other Mac navigation suggestions soon). PC Maritime's interesting Navmaster Superyacht AIS package (look in the Leisure section) includes the same Nasa engine, which passed the company’s own testing and is reportedly pleasing early users. Superyacht’s AIS display looks like the best I’ve seen to date. Click here for the full screen shot and notice how the vessel is drawn to correct scale and its predicted track, i.e. rate of turn, is shown along with its heading. The user gets to control what data gets shown with the AIS target, plus the sidebar neatly categorizes all possible AIS info. I still want to know if there's a downside to only receiving one AIS channel at a time (I've asked Nasa), but it sure is exciting to see AIS hardware, and software, rapidly becoming affordable for even medium size yachts.
Update: “The same data is sent alternately on both channels so listening on one channel only is not much of a limitation. (It means the unit would 'hear' data every 6 seconds rather than 3 seconds from a vessel travelling at speed.)” — Nasa Marine
I’d never heard of this Nasa AIS “Engine” before, but oddly got two e-mails yesterday that referenced it. It seems almost too good to be true: a simple AIS listener that can feed ship information to a PC’s serial port for a mere $200 (plus cost of VHF antenna). It’s sold by a U.K. firm here, but does not seem to be listed at its manufacturer’s site here. One spec I see that might be a deal breaker is that a user must “Select 161.975 or 162.025 MHZ operation”. I thought AIS devices automatically use both. Please, someone, educate me on these mysteries!
Update: Be sure to read the comment from reader Kees who owns one of these listeners, reports good performance, and terms it an �outstanding no unbelievable value...� Thanks, Kees!
Last night my May PMY electronics column went up on the magazine’s Web site, one of the first up for this issue for some reason (probably random). I don’t think there’s another boating magazine on the planet that publishes so much of its content to the Web so quickly, not to mention so well. I’m one writer who really appreciates it (there are some freelancers who fear that Web publishing will lead to theft of their work, but that’s another subject).
At any rate, the column is about the U.S. Coast Guard’s new search and rescue communications system, called Rescue 21. It’s going to be extremely powerful, but has suffered recent delays, which come on top of previous delays. Naming it after a century—instead of a year like NMEA 2000, also powerful but also slow to really happen—was a good idea.
ACR sent out a press alert about the first rescue credited to its relatively new GPS equipped Personal Locator Beacon. I can’t find any other Web references to the incident, which involved a pair of divers off Bradenton, Florida, but it certainly sounds like ACR and the whole SARSAT system have something to brag about. The little beacon was set off “around 7pm”, seen by a GOES Satellite at 6:58pm, sent up a GPS fix at 7:01pm (presumably from a cold start), and a Coast Guard 41 footer had steamed 10 plus miles to the scene by 8:10pm. It wasn’t until 7:47 that the LEOSAR satellites could resolve the beacon’s location by the standard Doppler method, a delay that might have cost a life in this case. Hat’s off to ACR’s apparently speedy GPS PLB technology and to the fast SARSAT dispatch system! Here’s an article I wrote about SARSAT last year, ACR’s AquaFix site, and an early look at these units by Doug Ritter at the Equipped to Survive Foundation (which will hopefully conduct a thorough test of current PLBs soon).
Engadget reports on Orca, a solution you might consider if safety onboard is important to you.... Although there already are similar systems available, it never hurts to have some competition in that area, especially when that helps stimulate innovation.
"No, not the vicious killer whale from that 70s movie. Going overboard? No problem. See, you�re sporting the Orca (Overboard Recovery Communications Apparatus), a new device worn by deck personnel in the military that alerts the ship if, and when, you take a little involuntary swim. The ORCA provides a unique ID for each individual, and it triggers pre-set messages to the bridge at the time of the big dive. It is also capable of triggering several beacons at once (in case a few deck hands go down for whatever reason) and pinpoints each one using GPS."
New regulation has triggered KVH to highlight their integrated communication system that uses the Inmarsat mini-C communication system and real-time GPS position reporting to alert when in distress. 
Although they are using terrorist threats to persuade commercial shippers to buy this product, this solution could be useful for private yachting as well.
"The eTrac SSAS is very easy to use - just press one of the two panic buttons to instantly send an alert containing such information as vessel identification, time, and precise location. The rugged KVH eTrac SSAS stands less than 6" high and weighs only 2.4 lbs and can be installed easily. The fully integrated system contains a transceiver, antenna, and a 12-channel GPS receiver."
A while ago there was this news about the McMurdo 'Precision 406 MHz GPS EPIRB' (also known as G4 406 MHz GSP EPIRB) and the McMurdo 'Fastfind Plus 406 MHz Personal Location Beacon' (also known as the Fastfind Plus 406 MHz PLB) that both failed to reliably acquire a GPS location 'fix' under operational 'real-world conditions. Now, after some new tests, it seems that these products work fine.
"The new tests were conducted on the company's upgraded FastFind Plus PLB and Precision EPIRB products, and were designed to replicate the earlier Equipped to Survive Foundation tests as closely as possible."
