AIS: why not?
 

I am very disapointed with the new Garmin GpsMap 478, because it
does not have AIS support. How could Garmin launch in these days, a
new gps marine plotter without AIS? Even if the initial AIS support
on the big boys 3205/3206/3210 is very basic, it would be nice on
the portables family (276/376/478) at last.

I think that the overall idea of the well known "NASA AIS Radar" is
very good. If it have an internal gps (very cheap ) and better
construction (Weather Proof, Color screen) I already have bough
one.. It even does not need to have eletronic charts/ploter, because
the simulated radar screen is praticaly what we need to make it a
very usefull device. Other thing is that it could have a NMEA out
port to send the decoded AIVDM message to other equipment like
the "NASA BalckBox Engine", and this pratically would double the
value of the equipament, Why no other company offer this too until
now?


Another question is: why the big radio manufactures (Icom, Standard
Horizon, JRC etc) does not have yet launched an AIS transceiver (a
class B AIS) inbed in theirs marine VHF/DSC radios? I think this
would be very ease and simple as all the VHF radios already have
chanels 87/88 and almost all have NMEA IN/OUT. And including a cheap
gps chip like a SIRF woul not increase too much the final price. I
would buy one if it exist just now.


Pascal