Standard Horizon GX 2100 AIS VHF

[Richard19068]

Does anyone have any experience with these VHF's with integrated AIS? They sound like a good way to get AIS information with fairly low cost and installation work, particularly for a boat without chartplotter or radar screens.

I was wondering if any users had any comments about the quality, practicality and ease of use of the AIS function of this radio.

Thanks

 

[Maine Sail]

Does anyone have any experience with these VHF's with integrated AIS? They sound like a good way to get AIS information with fairly low cost and installation work, particularly for a boat without chartplotter or radar screens.

I was wondering if any users had any comments about the quality, practicality and ease of use of the AIS function of this radio.

Thanks

If you don't have a chart plotter the AIS feature is fairly tedious on the little display screen. I own the Matrix 2100 AIS and it works well as a receiver but they do not TX your position only RX. If you don't have a plotter to display the targets on it will be a rather cumbersome unit to use IMHO.

As much as I like my 2100 AIS I can't honestly give it a good stand alone recommendation as an AIS unit.

 

[Richard19068]

Thanks Maine Sail. That's what I was afraid the problem might be. I like what I have read about AIS but don't really want to allocate the money for a separate receiver, antenna splitter, display etc. I had been looking at the Watchmate by Vesper Marine but it is still a little pricey. I'm not that interested in transmitting, just getting some notification about the big ships coming through when the visibility is low. I was thinking for $350 this might be worth it, but maybe not.

Given the limitations of the display, does the AIS receiver work satisfactorily? Like maybe I could get this for now and spring for a bigger display some time later.

Thanks again