AIS and pocket PC's

[AlanH]

In my energy and dollars conscious quest for electronics, it occurred to me that maybe I could run a less expensive AIS receiver like those sold by Miltech Marine, with a pocket PC instead of the full-on PC. I don't want to have the laptop going all the time, it sucks down way too many electrons. But a pocket PC might not be so bad. With some of the fewer bells-and-whistles models going used on ebay for under $100, I wonder.

Anybody know anything?

 

[AlanH]

e-mail and Iridum phones for the compleat idiot

I will carry a rental Iridium Phone on the Transpac and if I can actually send e-mail through it, I will consider charging up the battery on my laptop and taking the thing along. However, I am clueless as to the specifics of how to do this.

Would someone who has done this give an explanation about how, that's really specific and simple step-by-step?

 

[Alchera]

Alan -

It's not too difficult, but it's worth getting it working ahead of time because there may be a couple of configurations that aren't quite right first time off and it pays to be able to call the Iridium support guys while you are ashore if you can't figure it out.

Also, it pays to use a semi-private email account that no one but your trusted friends have, because you don't want to be receiving spam or large attachments over what is essentially a 2.4 kbs connection.

I'll give you the big picture and a link to the support page you would use for the detailed steps. It's been a little while since I did this, so I may have some details wrong or they may have changed, but here's what I remember.

Big Picture: You need to get a data cable with the phone that allows you to hook it up to a serial port or USB port. Also, you need to make sure that your Iridium service plan allows data access. Then go to the Iridium web site and download the Iridium Direct Internet 2.0.2 software that will load an Iridium modem driver on your laptop. (Actually, I'm assuming you have a PC, I don't know how or if this works for Macs.) After the modem driver is installed, the installation software will ask you to manually go to the control panel and add a new modem, specifying the file you downloaded and the port you will use for it. Once you have done this, the installation software will then install a new dialup network connection configuration which uses the new Iridium modem. I recommend you quit the install at this point without installing the client accelerator software.

I set up Microsoft Outlook to only access my email servers on command, never automatically. When I've finished writing my emails and putting them in the outbox, I turn on the phone, then bring up the Iridium network dialup connection and tell it to connect. As soon as it connects, I tell Outlook to send and receive emails. Once Outlook is done, I tell the network dialup connection to disconnect and then turn off the phone. That's it.

The Iridium support page with the documentation and software is:
http://www.iridium.com/support/downloads.htm

I don't recommend installing the Client Accelerator. It tries to take over every connection on the machine and is more trouble than it's worth.

For those folks that use SailMail and an SSB, you can set up Sailmail to use an internet connection when the computer is connected to the internet. If you do this, you can also send and receive your Sailmail over Iridium instead of having to establish an SSB connection. It's great when you can't manage to get a decent SSB connection to a Sailmail station. Or if you just want to connect quickly and are willing to pay for the Iridium connect time.

- Mark

 

[Paul Elliott]

In my energy and dollars conscious quest for electronics, it occurred to me that maybe I could run a less expensive AIS receiver like those sold by Miltech Marine, with a pocket PC instead of the full-on PC. I don't want to have the laptop going all the time, it sucks down way too many electrons. But a pocket PC might not be so bad. With some of the fewer bells-and-whistles models going used on ebay for under $100, I wonder.

Anybody know anything?

I used my PocketPC for just this reason when I sailed VALIS in the '06 PacCup. With a 12V power adaptor (cig lighter plug to USB), the PPC drew about 200mA. I ended up writing my own program that received AIS and all nav info using bluetooth and a Shipmodul NMEA multiplexer (which drew 150mA, but I was running the mux anyway).

I used the single-channel SR161 from Miltech, but have now switched to the SR162 dual-channel. The SR161 is quite good, and you really don't need the dual-channels unless you want to get ship name and callsign faster. The speed and course info comes in quite quickly even if you only get every other transmission (using the single-channel receiver).

For software there were some commercially available programs, but none of them had the combination of features I wanted. This situation may have changed since then.

The features I wanted were:
* AIS monitoring and alarm
* NMEA logging (for later analysis, essentially a VDR / Voyage Data Recorder)
* Nav-data dashboard, which could display stuff like True Wind Direction (my nav gear didn't give me this)

You need to figure out a way to get the data to the PPC. Bluetooth, WiFi, or perhaps wired RS-232. Since the (my) PPC is a USB peripheral, not a USB host, I couldn't use a USB/serial adaptor.

If you want an AIS alarm, make sure you can hear the PPC's speaker, or figure out some way to connect to an external alarm.

This year, instead of of the PPC, I will be using the Asus "EeePC", which is fairly cheap, small (but much bigger than a PPC), and quite low power for a laptop. This thing uses NVRAM instead of rotating disc, has a small but quite usable keyboard, a 600x800 screen, and with a 12V adaptor draws about 1.1A (screen on). It is not waterproof (or even splashproof), but neither was my PPC, and they stay down below anyway. This came with Linux, but I put WinXP on it and so far it has run anything I've thrown at it. I've ported (and improved) my old custom program, but the EeePC should run any of the available AIS-monitoring programs.

For Iridium email, I use XGate from Global Marine Networks (http://www.globalmarinenet.net/). This is a much faster and more robust email system than the *original* Iridium-provided arrangement. It sounds like this may have been improved, but the original system had way too much protocol overhead, and would abort an interrupted session (which will happen). XGate optimizes the protocol for satphone characteristics, does on-the-fly compression, and will resume an interrupted session. I hear that the XGate email client will run on the EeePC.

-Paul
-S/V VALIS

 

[Libations Too]

Alan,

I hope you get the Pocket PC angle working for you.

If not, you may want to consider the NASA Marine "AIS Radar". It is an AIS receiver with built in display, alarms, and different functions to allow viewing data, "radar" display, etc. As you probably know it is not really radar...poor choice of name IMHO. I bought mine after good reports from Bob J, and I am quite happy. I think it draws 50 mA without the backlight and 100 mA with the back light on. It is easy to connect to GPS. The only problem (or weakness) is that the backlight is way to bright when offshore at night. I turn the back light off and view the display under the red nav station light...works fine. For me the alarm is loud enough...but I'm a light sleeper.

If you are curious I have some photos on my web site on the projects pages (second from bottom of the completed projects list): http://rollinscs.com/boatpages/projects1page.htm

Richard,
Libations Too

 

[AlanH]

Does the NASA AIS unit need to be hooked up to a GPS Unit on the boat?

 

[Alchera]

Does the NASA AIS unit need to be hooked up to a GPS Unit on the boat?

Yes, that's how it gets the coordinates of your boat so that it knows the position at the center of the screen and can place the other targets accordingly.

- Mark

 

[AlanH]

Dangit. OK, so now that means that the cost of the system just jumped $300 since I don't have a fixed GPS on the boat. I use 3 handhelds and paper charts. It's looking more and more like the way to go is a Miltech single channel unit, a simple USB GPS receiver and my old Pentium II PC or a used subnotebook off of ebay. I only run the system when I'm sleeping for more than 20 minutes at a time since the PC sucks amps like it isn't funny.

Now to decide if I want to figure all this out, or not.

iridum e-mail sounds do-able. I just have to make sure I get the data service when I rent the thing and use my "hidden" work e-mail account. I can remotely dial in to the Stanford modem pool.

 

[sleddog]

Dangit. OK, so now that means that the cost of the system just jumped $300 since I don't have a fixed GPS on the boat. I use 3 handhelds and paper charts.

We use a Si-Tex (NASA) AIS plugged into older Garmin 12 handheld GPS, and it works fine.

 

[Libations Too]

Alan,

I use my NASA AIS with handheld Garmin 76s. I have the GPS at my nav station and use the power/data cable for the Garmin 76...thus it is powered from the house batteries and the GPS signal runs to a little junction block. From the junction block, I route the GPS signal to both my auto pilot and to the Nasa AIS. I carry a second Garmin 76 as a backup. This gives me two GPS units, two sources of power (house and gps batteries), and the ability to remove both GPS units when/if necessary. This is an easy setup, is quite miserly with electrons, and I am able to use the auto pilot to steer to waypoints if desired.

I also have a DSC VHF but have not yet wired the GPS to the VHF...but the little junction block is there waiting for me. My project for this summer is to add a second power/data cable and switching so that I can have one GPS at the helm and one at the nav station...and select between the two for auto pilot and AIS input.

 

[AlanH]

We use a Si-Tex (NASA) AIS plugged into older Garmin 12 handheld GPS, and it works fine.

This is encouraging, as I have that same unit and the serial connector as well. I also just ordered an etrex GPS off of ebay that also comes with a serial connector. Both units run off of AA batteries.

 

[Paul Elliott]

GPS Units

I got the Garmin "GPS18 PC" (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=157 -- See "GPS 18 OEM"), for about $75. If you want waterproof, they have an external unit for about $108 ("GPS 17 HVS"). These put out RS232. This might be easier than duct-taping a handheld GPS to the cabin overhead.

I am feeding the GPS18 into my SR162 and it works well. The SR162 muxes the GPS into the AIS output RS232 NMEA. The Garmin unit ought to feed into a NASA AIS Radar, although I haven't tried it.