Electronics
AIS solutions are giving skippers the freedom of portability.
Digital Yacht’s Nomad portable Class B AIS transponder received a DAME Special Mention at METS in December. As someone who once did numerous yacht deliveries, I certainly agree with the judges about its potential usefulness. Moving an unfamiliar boat that may well be brand new and untested—or in that scary gap known as “between owners”—is challenging enough. I remember how incredibly valuable the first handheld GPS receivers were for delivery work. Today, the Nomad could be the center of an amazing portable nav system.
The Nomad uses USB for both power and data; it has Wi-Fi output as well as a built-in GPS with internal antenna, and the QMAX 10-inch VHF/AIS antenna that’s included attaches with a suction cup. Add a USB power pack, a tablet, and a charting app that can take in GPS and AIS over Wi-Fi and you could step aboard with a completely self-contained navigation system that not only displays AIS-equipped vessels but puts your temporary ride on their AIS screens.
Now, there is an obvious problem with moving from boat to boat with an AIS that’s still basically designed to be used on one vessel with one MMSI number. In fact, even in areas outside the U.S. where owners can set up their MMSI in a new Class B AIS, they still can’t change it later. But even here in the U.S. you can change the vessel name and dimensions using PC software, and the Nomad’s USB cable certainly supports PC use.
Further off the beaten track—plus even smaller, less powerhungry and cheaper—is the dAISy 2+ AIS Receiver. Note that the developer is quite frank about the performance limitations of dAISy’s single-chip radio, but I’ll add that even the original single-channel dAISy did fairly well in my testing. I only saw slightly reduced range and sensitivity compared to bigger brand receivers using the same antenna, and the dAISy was easy to set up because there were none of the USB driver issues sometimes encountered with other AIS devices.
I’ll bet that some clever DIY navigator could build an interesting portable nav system using the dAISy HAT with a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, a combination that also seems good as the basis of an inexpensive self-contained Marine Traffic AIS reporting station. If you tackle either project and succeed, please let us know. ❒ For more information on these systems, as originally written by Ben Ellison, visit Power & Motoryacht- sponsored panbo.com.