I’ve been holding out for the RadarPlus SM162B (the all-in-a-tube Class B AIS unit from my neighbors at Shine Micro).
But if you’re not yet convinced you should broadcast your own position via Class B AIS, but you are convinced you’d like to see the vessels that do transmit, this is a very attractive all-in-one AIS receive-only unit from the folks at Digital Yacht. On a small boat like mine, without a lot of room for extra componentry in the cabin, this might be a great alternative.
Once it’s released in North America, this unit is expected to retail for under $300, making it yet more attractive.
Here’s the press release:
NEWBURYPORT, Mass. – Digital Yacht have expanded their range of AIS products with the world’s first, fully self contained, Smart AIS antenna. The SmarterTrack ANT200 incorporates a highly sensitive dual channel AIS receiver into a waterproof antenna housing no bigger than a traditional GPS antenna. Simply connect the power and interface connections to any compatible AIS plotter (such as those from Raymarine, Standard Horizon, Garmin, Furuno, Lowrance etc) and you’ll be presented with an overlay of AIS targets directly onto your plotter screen. All commercial ships over 300 GRT have a mandatory requirement to carry a Class A transponder – sending and receiving AIS data which includes position, identity and course information. Leisure users can also opt for a more simplified Class B transponder if they wish to transmit as well as receive their position information. The SmarterTrack ANT200 will decode both types of transmission.
The innovative SmarterTrack ANT200 fits a standard 1" threaded deck or rail mount base and comes complete with 10 metre cable. The interface connections are via a traditional 2 wire NMEA 0183 connection and the product can also act as a multiplexer taking an input of NMEA data and combining it into one single output. This could be particularly useful on multi-function displays.
[Editor’s note: I consider this last feature critical for boaters with older chartplotters, such as my Raymarine C-series. There’s only one NMEA port on the plotter, so if you can have the AIS unit act as a one-way NMEA signal aggregator (it isn’t, strictly speaking, a “multiplexer”), you can probably keep all your electronics talking to one another. You can read about my experience hooking up my DSC VHF radio and AIS. —Tim]
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Has anyone had problems with rail-mounted antennas in close-in situations?
We have our AIS antenna mounted on the top rail at the stern of our 34′ sailboat using a Comar AIS-2-USB receiver. We’ve found a few occasions where we have lost the AIS signal from ships (freighters or cruise ships) within a mile or two of us – right when you really want the current information.
My best guess is that the ship’s superstructure ends up blocking the AIS signal. If that is the case, we might have better luck with a masthead antenna 50′ up – although given the size of some of these ships, even that may not help.