SOB!, free PC charting w/ AIS
A reader from Sydney, Australia, wrote to say that he’s happily using a NASA AIS Receiver with a program I hadn’t heard of called Software on Board (SOB) from DigiBoat. I gave it a brief looksee, above...
Category: PC & peripheral
Ocean Planet, all away around with a laptop
I’m back in Maine, but unfortunately won’t be able to make the Homecoming ceremony for single-hander Bruce Schwab that starts in Portland today. Bruce just sailed from France to Maine aboard his Open 60 Ocean...
Comar SLR-100 AIS, and more on dual frequency
Comar has a new SLR100 single frequency AIS listener for £299 suggested UK retail (the SLR200 is £575). Since they now make both single and dual frequency, I asked them about the differences. It turns out that their receiver, unlike Nasa’s, automatically...
Nobeltec Sounder, package completed?
Nobeltec just announced an InSight Sounder option for its VNS and Admiral charting+++ programs. The company can now supply the soft– and hardware for plotting, radar, AIS, and fishfinding, including a heading sensor and even...
AIS Engine in U.S., and on plotters
Yesterday I was tickled to learn that Nasa’s AIS Radar and Engine will be marketed in U.S. under the well known Si-Tex brand (thanks, Pascal). That means U.S. sales and support. It also turns out that the Engine...
GeoSat Solutions’ high end marine WiFi
One problem with putting together a high power marine WiFi system is the need to use finger-thick low-loss LMR 400 coax—the shorter the better—between the high-gain antenna and the radio. The stuff is hard to run and particularly ungainly...
Nasa AIS listener, part 2
In addition to Kees’ report yesterday, Dan sent in a link describing another successful test of the Nasa AIS engine, this time in conjunction with GPSNavX charting software for Mac computers. (Thanks, Dan, and I’ll follow up on your...
Inexpensive AIS listener mystery
I’d never heard of this Nasa AIS “Engine” before, but oddly got two e-mails yesterday that referenced it. It seems almost too good to be true: a simple AIS listener that can feed ship information to a...
Actisense Smart NMEA Autoswitch
This is the first NMEA 0183 multiplexor I know of that can automatically switch to a back up input for any one of three reasons — “a failure to send any NMEA data, an invalid NMEA...
