Northstar 8000i, new radar too
The Northstar 8000i will get a lot of attention in Miami. In fact, I just scratched the surface when I profiled its touch screen technology and overall architecture in early January. For instance, I didn’t mention the radar scanners, which are entirely new. The hardware is from JRC, the software from Northstar [correction: Northstar also designed the processor hardware], and I’m told that the results are amazing. At any rate, a British company has just put up the Northstar 2006 catalog, which has the best material I’ve seen yet on the 8000i. It’s a 3 meg .pdf file here.
It’s regretable that the Northstar catalog makes no mention of AIS. Thusfar, there appears to be no pleasure boat radar/chartplotter that can display AIS data.
I asked Northstar about AIS, and was told that it’s definitely coming to their plotter/radars. Furuno NavNet vx2 machines already plot AIS, and Raymarine just announced that both C and E Series will soon.