Given that it is cold and rainy outside, I've decided to spend the day thinking through some options. In front of a cozy fire.
One of the things I'm thinking about started small, but is now snowballing. I called Uniden yesterday (makers of the West Marine-branded VHF units). Found out that in order to get the current MMSI number cleared out of the DSC programming would cost close to the unit would cost to replace. They want $69, plus $20 "shipping and handling" to clear the programming, and estimate that the turnaround would be "6 to 8 weeks". Plus whatever it costs me to ship it to them. Which means I'd have it back sometime in February, for very slightly less than the price West Marine has the current model on sale today. Hmmmm. Given that it is probably A Bad Idea to go cruising around with Christian's MMSI number, I have to do... "something".
So here's where it starts to snowball. I've looked into AIS systems and think that Christian made a great choice in the Vesper WatchMate system. And being a geek by trade, I'm intrigued by the capabilities of interconnected data flows - I like the idea of having AIS targets show up on the pedestal-mounted Garmin GPS display, and of having GPS data available to the VHF for DSC uses, etc. I also like the idea of discrete purpose-driven devices, in general - I think the GPS should be good at GPS, the VHF should be good at radio, etc. The challenge is that - in most cases - each device thinks that it is the "hub" of the data system, and I think there *might* be value in setting up a data network. And I don't yet understand NMEA well enough, yet, to know whether I can connect the GPS to *both* the VHF and the AIS without creating complexity.
Mixed in there somewhere is that I'm also in the market for a new antenna. When the mast came out I noticed that the base of the VHF antenna was cracked, and the insulation on the coax was split where it came out of the mast, so I'm going to be replacing both before the rig goes back in. But before I can pick out an antenna I need to decide whether I'm going with a dedicated AIS unit or not, because the Vesper system recommends their dual-purpose antenna over a standard VHF antenna.
*IF* I end up replacing the VHF, I'm aware that there are units that contain a GPS receiver and an AIS transponder. The Icom M506, for example, has the ability to show nav and AIS data on its dot-matrix display as well as being a (reportedly) well-regarded DSC VHF. At first blush, that seems like an interesting choice. One thing to install, no interconnections required to have GPS position and AIS alarms at the nav table, no need for an antenna splitter, etc. But it also puts a lot of eggs in one basket - if the magic smoke leaks out of that one device, an awful lot of capabilities disappear. It also, as far as I can tell, only *receives* AIS data - there's no mention of transmitting my AIS data in the product description.
And now the snowball gets larger. Because what I'd really love to understand is how difficult it is (or isn't) to set up an NMEA hub or multiplexer so that data from each device can be made available to all the others. But I also recognize that I completely spent my current understanding of the topic when I typed that sentence. If it is simple to do, that may be a tiebreaker and would certainly provide future flexibility. If it is a wiring or programming nightmare, it may tip me toward a different set of choices.
Has anyone worked through this, either the all-in-one-device approach or the discrete-but-multiplexed approach? And have insights, recommendations or horror-stories to share?
Thanks in advance!
Bruce
One of the things I'm thinking about started small, but is now snowballing. I called Uniden yesterday (makers of the West Marine-branded VHF units). Found out that in order to get the current MMSI number cleared out of the DSC programming would cost close to the unit would cost to replace. They want $69, plus $20 "shipping and handling" to clear the programming, and estimate that the turnaround would be "6 to 8 weeks". Plus whatever it costs me to ship it to them. Which means I'd have it back sometime in February, for very slightly less than the price West Marine has the current model on sale today. Hmmmm. Given that it is probably A Bad Idea to go cruising around with Christian's MMSI number, I have to do... "something".
So here's where it starts to snowball. I've looked into AIS systems and think that Christian made a great choice in the Vesper WatchMate system. And being a geek by trade, I'm intrigued by the capabilities of interconnected data flows - I like the idea of having AIS targets show up on the pedestal-mounted Garmin GPS display, and of having GPS data available to the VHF for DSC uses, etc. I also like the idea of discrete purpose-driven devices, in general - I think the GPS should be good at GPS, the VHF should be good at radio, etc. The challenge is that - in most cases - each device thinks that it is the "hub" of the data system, and I think there *might* be value in setting up a data network. And I don't yet understand NMEA well enough, yet, to know whether I can connect the GPS to *both* the VHF and the AIS without creating complexity.
Mixed in there somewhere is that I'm also in the market for a new antenna. When the mast came out I noticed that the base of the VHF antenna was cracked, and the insulation on the coax was split where it came out of the mast, so I'm going to be replacing both before the rig goes back in. But before I can pick out an antenna I need to decide whether I'm going with a dedicated AIS unit or not, because the Vesper system recommends their dual-purpose antenna over a standard VHF antenna.
*IF* I end up replacing the VHF, I'm aware that there are units that contain a GPS receiver and an AIS transponder. The Icom M506, for example, has the ability to show nav and AIS data on its dot-matrix display as well as being a (reportedly) well-regarded DSC VHF. At first blush, that seems like an interesting choice. One thing to install, no interconnections required to have GPS position and AIS alarms at the nav table, no need for an antenna splitter, etc. But it also puts a lot of eggs in one basket - if the magic smoke leaks out of that one device, an awful lot of capabilities disappear. It also, as far as I can tell, only *receives* AIS data - there's no mention of transmitting my AIS data in the product description.
And now the snowball gets larger. Because what I'd really love to understand is how difficult it is (or isn't) to set up an NMEA hub or multiplexer so that data from each device can be made available to all the others. But I also recognize that I completely spent my current understanding of the topic when I typed that sentence. If it is simple to do, that may be a tiebreaker and would certainly provide future flexibility. If it is a wiring or programming nightmare, it may tip me toward a different set of choices.
Has anyone worked through this, either the all-in-one-device approach or the discrete-but-multiplexed approach? And have insights, recommendations or horror-stories to share?
Thanks in advance!
Bruce
