A reader emailed to say he was going to try out a “black-box” AIS receiver with his PC (thanks Dave!), and included a link to a UK-based retailer that sells the product. If you’ve browsed British sailing magazines you’ve probably seen ads for the budget instrument maker NASA Marine, the supplier of this AIS receiver and another one that has a “radar-like” LCD display to show the positions and other vitals of shipping traffic equipped with AIS transponders. The black-box version simply connects to a VHF antenna to receive the AIS signals, and outputs NMEA sentences that can be interpreted by appropriate equipment and software. Ah, there’s the rub! Given the newness of AIS in for pleasure boaters, there are few products out there, but a simple charting program that supports AIS is bundled, and MaxSea, one of the over-achievers of the charting software world has an add-on to support it as well. One other caveat…the maker says that a VHF antenna separate from your VHF radio is required for the receiver. Oh, and Dave says his initial tests show that it works!

Links: Nasa Marine, Seamark Nunn (online retailer), MaxSea