This looks like a useful accessory, especially on those long offshore night
watches. Anyone have any experience using it w/Nobeltec?
http://www.milltechmarine.com/SR161.htm

"RayD" wrote in :

This looks like a useful accessory, especially on those long offshore
night watches. Anyone have any experience using it w/Nobeltec?
http://www.milltechmarine.com/SR161.htm




We've just upgraded Lionheart's AIS receiving from the self-contained
little LCD display with no chart to using the SR161 to The Cap'n, our nav
software of choice. As the SR161 only outputs 38,800 baud serial data,
incompatible with the NMEA 0183 network's 4800 baud data, you have two
choices in how to hook it up to your system.

Choice one is to send Meindert a few hundred dollars for his NMEA
multiplexer that has a 38,800 baud input. The multiplexer buffers the
data and feeds it into the data stream as AIS statements (which, by the
way, are NOT NMEA statements) for your various AIS-compatible units to
dissolve. This may become a problem in areas of intense shipping where
there may be too many ships transmitting high speed data for the measily
NMEA 4800 baud data stream to process.

Choice two is $8 at Radio Shack! Radio Shack (or any computer store) has
a RS-232C serial to USB converter cable whos electronics powers itself
from the computer's USB port. The cable comes with a software driver CD
that self-installs before connecting the cable. Once installed, each
time you plug in the cable, a new COM4 serial port shows up that your nav
software can access. So, I have the NMEA network coming in at 4800 baud
to COM1, the only 9-pin serial port on the boat's laptop. The SR161's
serial output plugs directly into the Radio Shack's $8 Serial-to-USB
adapter cable, which its driver fools the computer OS into thinking is
another RS-232C serial port running at 38,800 8-N-1 no flow control
serial port that intense shipping will not overrun with AIS data. The
Captain's latest version 8.3 digests the AIS higher speed data stream and
sends it out over the 4800 baud NMEA data network to the other chart
plotters....but only those plotters who have firmware upgrades that
include support for AIS data plotting....the new ones. We only need it
on the main computer at the nav station easily seen from the helm.

Sorry I don't know if Nobeltec's software handles it like this, but I
suspect it would. The Captain easily reads both ports.

From a Metz Manta 6, 1/2 wave VHF whip, atop our 42' mizzen in the middle
of all those masts at Charleston City Marina, I'm seeing ship
transmissions with the SR161 out about 20-25 miles. I suspect it will go
further away from the intense paging system interference, once we get it
to seaward. The receiver in it is very sensitive to these little 12 watt
transmitters, even in this noise.

Yes, AIS is very useful for navigation, indeed. Just having that ship's
MMSI, name and callsign over there on the horizon, when your boat starts
flooding, could save lives.....

I want us to have a transponder....I'm working on that goal. Lionheart
should be on all those displays by next year....(c;

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.

Larry wrote:
"RayD" wrote in :

This looks like a useful accessory, especially on those long offshore
night watches. Anyone have any experience using it w/Nobeltec?
http://www.milltechmarine.com/SR161.htm




We've just upgraded Lionheart's AIS receiving from the self-contained
little LCD display with no chart to using the SR161 to The Cap'n, our nav
software of choice. As the SR161 only outputs 38,800 baud serial data,
incompatible with the NMEA 0183 network's 4800 baud data, you have two
choices in how to hook it up to your system.

Choice one is to send Meindert a few hundred dollars for his NMEA
multiplexer that has a 38,800 baud input. The multiplexer buffers the
data and feeds it into the data stream as AIS statements (which, by the
way, are NOT NMEA statements) for your various AIS-compatible units to
dissolve. This may become a problem in areas of intense shipping where
there may be too many ships transmitting high speed data for the measily
NMEA 4800 baud data stream to process.

Choice two is $8 at Radio Shack! Radio Shack (or any computer store) has
a RS-232C serial to USB converter cable whos electronics powers itself
from the computer's USB port. The cable comes with a software driver CD
that self-installs before connecting the cable. Once installed, each
time you plug in the cable, a new COM4 serial port shows up that your nav
software can access. So, I have the NMEA network coming in at 4800 baud
to COM1, the only 9-pin serial port on the boat's laptop. The SR161's
serial output plugs directly into the Radio Shack's $8 Serial-to-USB
adapter cable, which its driver fools the computer OS into thinking is
another RS-232C serial port running at 38,800 8-N-1 no flow control
serial port that intense shipping will not overrun with AIS data. The
Captain's latest version 8.3 digests the AIS higher speed data stream and
sends it out over the 4800 baud NMEA data network to the other chart
plotters....but only those plotters who have firmware upgrades that
include support for AIS data plotting....the new ones. We only need it
on the main computer at the nav station easily seen from the helm.

Sorry I don't know if Nobeltec's software handles it like this, but I
suspect it would. The Captain easily reads both ports.

From a Metz Manta 6, 1/2 wave VHF whip, atop our 42' mizzen in the middle
of all those masts at Charleston City Marina, I'm seeing ship
transmissions with the SR161 out about 20-25 miles. I suspect it will go
further away from the intense paging system interference, once we get it
to seaward. The receiver in it is very sensitive to these little 12 watt
transmitters, even in this noise.

Yes, AIS is very useful for navigation, indeed. Just having that ship's
MMSI, name and callsign over there on the horizon, when your boat starts
flooding, could save lives.....

I want us to have a transponder....I'm working on that goal. Lionheart
should be on all those displays by next year....(c;

Larry
The new Nobeltec Version 9 handles AIS input and displays it on the chart.
krj

krj wrote in
:

The new Nobeltec Version 9 handles AIS input and displays it on the
chart. krj



So all you need is the $7 Radio Shack serial-to-USB cable to plug the SR161
into and you're in business!....(c;

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.

"RayD" wrote in :

This looks like a useful accessory, especially on those long offshore
night watches. Anyone have any experience using it w/Nobeltec?
http://www.milltechmarine.com/SR161.htm

I installed a Milltech SR161 and an antenna splitter on BlueJacket just
before moving it from the Chesapeake to Ft. Lauderdale and I must say that
I was very happy with the performance. My VHF antenna is on top of my 60'
mast and most of the time I saw ships at 40 miles or less. On a less
frequent basis I would see ships at 40-60 miles away and I even saw a
cruise ship at 88 miles away. I was amazed and I realize that it must have
been some strange skip to hear a vessel so far away. In areas like
Norfolk, Charleston and Ft. Lauderdale I regularly had 50+ targets that I
was tracking.

I used a RayMarine C80 to display the targets, but I also had AIS output
available to my laptop. The C80 would display a "no AIS" alarm when I was
in fringe ares where a single ship's signal would fade in and out. This
caused the alarm to keep going off and there's no way to disable this.

Despite the "no AIS" and a few other problems that I saw, I wouldn't be
without this. MARPA on a small sailboat underway can't begin to compare
with the accuracy of AIS and its fun to see information about targets such
as names, size, type and destination. I do look forward to getting a
transponder when the prices come down as I want the other vessels out there
to see me as well as I see them.

-- Geoff

I used a RayMarine C80 to display the targets, but I also had AIS output
available to my laptop. The C80 would display a "no AIS" alarm when I was
in fringe ares where a single ship's signal would fade in and out. This
caused the alarm to keep going off and there's no way to disable this.

If your own vessel has AIS would that silence the alarm? Of course then you
clutter up your display with your own vessel. Would the Raymarine units be
smart enough to know to ignore it's own vessel's signal?

If it can handle seeing it's own vessel then that'd take care of the 'no
AIS' alarm. Or at least make it a way to failsafe it's own signal.

-Bill Kearney

In article ,
"Bill Kearney" wkearney-99@hot-mail-com wrote:

I used a RayMarine C80 to display the targets, but I also had AIS output
available to my laptop. The C80 would display a "no AIS" alarm when I was
in fringe ares where a single ship's signal would fade in and out. This
caused the alarm to keep going off and there's no way to disable this.

If your own vessel has AIS would that silence the alarm? Of course then you
clutter up your display with your own vessel. Would the Raymarine units be
smart enough to know to ignore it's own vessel's signal?

If it can handle seeing it's own vessel then that'd take care of the 'no
AIS' alarm. Or at least make it a way to failsafe it's own signal.

-Bill Kearney


No it would not, normally as your AIS Receiver would not hear or decode
your own AIS Transmitted signal.


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @

Bruce in Alaska wrote in news:bruceg-
:

No it would not, normally as your AIS Receiver would not hear or decode
your own AIS Transmitted signal.


Bruce in alaska


Assuming, of course, your AIS receiver is integrated with your AIS
transmitter, not using these little separate receivers we are using.....(c;

As orders for 300+ ton AIS transponders dries up, manufacturers will be
forced to service the pleasure boats to keep selling with cash flow.
Prices will drop, then. Shouldn't be too long.

Larry
--
Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.

We have handheld GPS, handheld VHF radio, where is my handheld AIS??
Remember the VHF only has to receive, so the larger bulky batteries
wouldn't
be required.
Tom