Buy gold online - quickly, safely and at low prices

Interesting boats

A Life Less Ordinary?

Free Ads

----------------------------

SmileTrain

----------------------------

Our World 2.0

----------------------------

Avaaz.org

----------------------------

ProjectBriatin

----------------------------

CruisingWiki

AIS Update – does yours have an “anti-pirate” Button?

By Russ, on June 1st, 2008

I thought I would give a quick update on some of the more popular brands of AIS receiver and transponder, including some of the salient comparative features. Prices are approximate of course, when you look at your favourite online store I am sure you could better them – but it was interesting to note the price variations and also the way that features are not always a guide to price.

 

Maker Watts Dual Ch Notes Price
RECEIVERS £
NASA AIS2 0.5 104.95
NASA AIS Radar 0.5 209.95
Easy AIS2 0.9 211.44
Raymarine AIS250 2.4 647.43
Comar AIS2 0.4 Yes 211.57
SR162 AIS 1.5 Yes 292.67
Comar SLR200G 0.4 Yes 3 459.83
AIS RX 1.5 Yes 3 511.97
TRANSPONDERS
Digital Yacht AIT250 4.0 Yes 1,2,3 449.00
AIS-CTRX 4.0 Yes 2,3 605.98
Comar CSB200 4.0 Yes 648.72
Simrad A150 12 Yes 2,3 789.00

 

Note 1 : The unit has an Safety Related Message (SRM) button that allows the user to transmit a distress alert quickly and easily to all vessels and base stations within range. Often this button is programmed to engage “Silent Mode” when this “S” button is pressed. This means that it will only receive and not transmit – useful if you are worried about piracy!. The SRM feature is in addition to the international AIS specification and may not be monitored by all reception equipment. This feature does not replace use of normal VHF emergency procedures.

Note 2 : Comes with antenae

Note 3 : Comes with built in GPS – may be useful as a back up GPS to your normal one.

FacebookGoogle BookmarksBlogger PostLinkedInTwitterMySpaceStumbleUponShare
June 1st, 2008| No comments - be the first!|Tags: - .

Leave a Reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Pathaway Chartplotter for Windows Mobile 6

By Russ, on March 31st, 2008

We are used to seeing a number of dedicated handheld chartplotter units like the Garmin 76CS and Raymarine RC400 both of which I have been using for the past 4 years. You may also know that Raymarine have now ducked out of the market for some reason. But getting reliable marine chartplotter software for the Windows mobile platform is rather more difficult.

MuskokaTech is a company that creates software applications for mobile devices – in particular GPS and plotting software.

Fugawi The Pathaway software from Muskoka is quite an exception . The “Standard” version is very capable and has the ability to “import your charts” …I haven’t tested this but will try to find out a bit more…but sounds very interesting and saves money if you have already got your Bluechart or Navionics charts.

It definitely imports the maps from Fugawi Global Navigator or Fugawi Marine ENC.

PathAway supports a wide variety of digital maps including the Fugawi World Digital Map Collection, many third party maps or even user scanned paper maps. Maps are highly compressed and can be any size and resolution that fits within your device memory.

Waypoints, routes and tracks can also be transferred between Fugawi Global Navigator or Fugawi Marine ENC and PathAway.

The Pathaway “Pro” version has some interesting “beta features” such as 2-way wireless remote location tracking. See where others are right from your handheld, share your location with others, or send to a central tracking service – now that would be cool for boats traveling in a flotilla on on the club regatta ! …And all without installing and AIS transmitter !

How about this software combined with the tiny HTC7510..mentioned here – now that could be a great combination!

FacebookGoogle BookmarksBlogger PostLinkedInTwitterMySpaceStumbleUponShare
March 31st, 2008| 3 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - - .

Live AIS plot off the coast of East Anglia, England

By Russ, on February 2nd, 2008

Antenna2Martin Waller lives in Chelmondiston – a small village in Suffolk, England, on the south bank of the River Orwell, and to the east of the Ipswich.

Martin is obviously a sailor and also a software geek and AIS Live has come up with a web site on which he is plotting AIS signals from vessels off the coast of East Anglia – he has even put this aerial on the side of his house to improve reception – its a Super J-Pole designed for 161 Mhz reception and formed from 15mm copper pipe!

He has not only overlaid AIS transmissions on a Google maps background but also the Navtex transmitter stations as far south as Rome and Croatia.

Remember this is all live and in (almost) real time….

Well done Martin – I like your style, perhaps when I have retired …..:-)

FacebookGoogle BookmarksBlogger PostLinkedInTwitterMySpaceStumbleUponShare
February 2nd, 2008| 2 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - .

Using Hyperterminal on your laptop

By Russ, on August 11th, 2007

If you have had to configure a unit such as a multiplexer you will have come across the part in the manual where it says use Hyperterminal. This is a free communications program that you can use to monitor the signals going in/out of the serial port on your laptop and to send configuration commands from the laptop to the multiplexer.

For example to set one of the ports on the multiplexer to a higher speed such as 38,400 baud suitable for connecting your AIS unit. Signals and data from the AIS would then be routed via the multiplexer to your chart plotter for example.

In my case I link a NASA AIS unit via my Brookhouse multiplexer to my Raymarine C120 chart plotter in this way. But to make it work I had to get my laptop, plug in a cable in the laptops serial port then put the bare wires at the other end into the Brookhouse multiplexer and tell the multiplexer to change the speed of one of its ports from 4,800 to 38,400 baud. Then unplug the laptop, connect the AIS and that was it – AIS data on my C120.

Even if you have done all this before did you know that that little program called Hyperterminal is no longer given away by Microsoft with Windows Vista? {read my post here to find out more…}

If you are having trouble with Hyperterminal read these tech notes from Microsoft.

FacebookGoogle BookmarksBlogger PostLinkedInTwitterMySpaceStumbleUponShare
August 11th, 2007| 2 comments - be the next!|Tags: - - - - .

Which Multiplexer ?

By Russ, on August 11th, 2007

Over a year ago I searched high and low for the “perfect” multiplexer and readers of this blog will know that I selected the Brookhouse from New Zealand in the end {more of that in this post from last year}.

Configuration for nearly all these units is by using Hyperterminal or similar software – so you had better find out how to do that!. {see my posting on this program here}

This is a new unit from on sale at Marine Electronic Service Ltd for £194 inc VAT.

Eissing SB2006- 1x input NMEA0183 / RS-422 isolated

- 3x input NMEA0183 / RS-422 isolated

- 1x output NMEA0183 / RS-422 isolated

- 1x COM port (RS-422 level)
- power supply for external equipment

You should note that RS422 is not RS232 or RS232C which is the “older” and slower PC comms port standard – but nevertheless make sure that the laptop you want to connect to supports RS422 as its serial connection…{see my post here on the subject}.

I cant vouch for its operation since I am very happy with my Brookhouse. But you may want to compare the two if you are about to take the step of trying to integrate AIS and other slower NMEA instruments into your chart plotter or laptop. {See my posting here on the Brookhouse}

FacebookGoogle BookmarksBlogger PostLinkedInTwitterMySpaceStumbleUponShare
August 11th, 2007| No comments - be the first!|Tags: - - - .
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »