SeaLinks AIS listener, & more
The horrid run of foul weather has finally broken here, and I’m happily on Cape Cod for a few days of “researching” a cruising story…so posting may be irregular this week. I did have a couple of very illuminating conversations about AIS listeners last Friday that I want to start sharing. It seems that the technology is moving even faster than we realized; two reliable sources predict that most every brand of plotter will read AIS target messages by next February’s Miami Boat Show! I also heard an interesting report on receiver quality. One of my sources says he tested a SeaLinks RadarPlus dual channel listener against a low cost Chinese-built model, and—given the same antenna and circumstances—the RadarPlus “saw” twice as many targets at almost twice the range. I look forward to my own testing, and yours, but right now I have to go boating.
Really interesting. I wonder if the AIS listeners on new plotters will suffer the same lack of reciever consistency that can be seen with the Sealinks vs. cheaper Chinese alternative.
Hey Ben,
Some softweare packages, like my Macintosh-based GPSNavX , have been able to read & plot AIS for quite a while already. Where have the Garmin, Furuno and Raymarine boys been all this time? (grin)
regards,
I’d be interested in a proper head-to-head comparison, as I did a comparison of this “cheaper Chinese alternative” vs a very expensive Nauticast DS unit & found the Chinese unit to be better than the US$3500 Nauticast (which of course is a full transceiver, therefore the higher price).
My findings are at:
http://www.jodael.com/sr162_performance_testing.htm
Dave