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 other Mac navigation suggestions soon). PC Maritime’s interesting Navmaster Superyacht AIS package (look in the Leisure section) includes the same Nasa engine, which passed the company’s own testing and is reportedly pleasing early users. Superyacht’s AIS display looks like the best I’ve seen to date. Click here for the full screen shot and notice how the vessel is drawn to correct scale and its predicted track, i.e. rate of turn, is shown along with its heading. The user gets to control what data gets shown with the AIS target, plus the sidebar neatly categorizes all possible AIS info. I still want to know if there’s a downside to only receiving one AIS channel at a time (I’ve asked Nasa), but it sure is exciting to see AIS hardware, and software, rapidly becoming affordable for even medium size yachts.
Update: “The same data is sent alternately on both channels so listening on one channel only is not much of a limitation. (It means the unit would ‘hear’ data every 6 seconds rather than 3 seconds from a vessel travelling at speed.)” — Nasa Marine
