T&T: AIS

[Dave Cooper]

I received several responses from folks who thought my email, re AIS, put
them off on aquiring a reciever.(sorry I seemed to have sent two very
similar one unedited and the later one corrected).

Quite the contrary. We've had AIS receive capibility for the past 18 months
and wouldn't be without it. It is any extremely valuable to navigation and
watch keeping. Any of the reciever on the market will give you the ability
to "see"any AIS traffic out to at least 10 miles and more. We have gotten 50
miles out of one of the cheap multiplexing 2 channel ones. This is an
anomololy as the more normal range is ~20 miles.

Being able to know the name of a target, its heading, speed, range and CPA
all in one glance on your chartplotter or PC gives the watch a huge assist
in identification of potential CPA's that are of a concern.

I wouldn't hesitate purchasing one in heartbeat and if money is an issue the
go with a cheap one....you'll still be happy with the results, IMHO.

My issue is with the IMO and their mandadte that the Class A units be
required which didn't include the step of enforcement of the need to have
them operating, in date software or whom to report any violations to. So we
see ships that should have a working class A AIS and when contacted either
quit talking to you when you mention it or will suddenly appear on the AIS
as you are talking. Likewise the info that they are sending re the data may
be in error, again talking to them generally gets no where.

Without a means to enforce the requirements the ships that "don't care" will
not come up on the AIS with correct data. I doubt that you'll see many
offenders in US waters as most areas have VTS schemes that monitor the AIS
traffic. However once away from the US and most likely other areas where VTS
schemes are used the adhearance to "rules" becomes much more lax. IMO.

Soon, we hear, the Class B transceivers units will be FCC approved so you
can buy one in the US. Perhaps a nice post Christmas present for the boat
:-)

As always YMMV....

Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58