Does anyone have experience w/ an AIS receiver whilst cruising- especially Baja? Worth the $300? Brad'AT'gmail.com
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AIS
Hi Brad, Have been cruising the English Channel with AIS receive only (NASA AIS ENGINE £125) since 2005. This feeding into laptop running Euronav SeaPro navigation program. (You can keep your finnicky chart plotters with miniscule screens - use the real thing with a 15" screen!) Fantastic - no other words to describe it. Screen shows ships symbol + name + track + speed over ground. Can interrogate to get MMSI destination etc. Also gives Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and Time to CPA (TCPA). Does this for any number of ships and puts a table of these on screen. Also sounds an alarm if needed. Flashes on screen any ships with CPA of less than my setting. I use 1 mile minimum CPA. Shows position of CPA as a dot on the chart so it becomes obvious which way to turn to open up the gap. Transmit & receive units are now on market but expensive. However it might be nice to think/hope the ships have seen you too! One day, in less than 1 mile viz, whilst crossing the Dover shipping TSS (busiest in the world) I had 13 ships all approaching me spread across the 6 mile width of the lane all proceeding at normal service speeds - very uncomfortable - some at 25 kts. In the event all passed safely on their way (hence this posting). The Admiral only saw one ship by eye so she says "That thing is just something to frighten yourself with" - and she's right. Notwithstanding I feel much more comfortable with it than without it. We called one ship on VHF saying "We are the small yacht dead in front of you, can you see us?" A LOOONG delay then "Ah, ja I got you, I go astern of you". Am convinced he had not seen us on radar or visually until we called, although by then we could see him plainly. Makes one wonder about radar reflectors. Incidentally AIS almost makes radar redundant except for locating speedboats. We normally see other yachts and slower moving vessels in sufficient time to avoid them. Buy it. Apologies if I have trodden on someone's corns.
Hi Brad, Have been cruising the English Channel with AIS receive only (NASA AIS ENGINE £125) since 2005. This feeding into laptop running Euronav SeaPro navigation program. (You can keep your finnicky chart plotters with miniscule screens - use the real thing with a 15" screen!) Fantastic - no other words to describe it. Screen shows ships symbol + name + track + speed over ground. Can interrogate to get MMSI destination etc. Also gives Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and Time to CPA (TCPA). Does this for any number of ships and puts a table of these on screen. Also sounds an alarm if needed. Flashes on screen any ships with CPA of less than my setting. I use 1 mile minimum CPA. Shows position of CPA as a dot on the chart so it becomes obvious which way to turn to open up the gap. Transmit & receive units are now on market but expensive. However it might be nice to think/hope the ships have seen you too! One day, in less than 1 mile viz, whilst crossing the Dover shipping TSS (busiest in the world) I had 13 ships all approaching me spread across the 6 mile width of the lane all proceeding at normal service speeds - very uncomfortable - some at 25 kts. In the event all passed safely on their way (hence this posting). The Admiral only saw one ship by eye so she says "That thing is just something to frighten yourself with" - and she's right. Notwithstanding I feel much more comfortable with it than without it. We called one ship on VHF saying "We are the small yacht dead in front of you, can you see us?" A LOOONG delay then "Ah, ja I got you, I go astern of you". Am convinced he had not seen us on radar or visually until we called, although by then we could see him plainly. Makes one wonder about radar reflectors. Incidentally AIS almost makes radar redundant except for locating speedboats. We normally see other yachts and slower moving vessels in sufficient time to avoid them. Buy it. Apologies if I have trodden on someone's corns.
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