Digital yacht usb AIS device

[WBChristie]

Does anyone have one of these digital yacht AIS usb devices? Its pretty cool and it just plugs into a usb port, the one thing I'm not sure of is where it gets its gps info from? If I use it with seaclear, will it use the gps data that is already inputed to the laptop through another com port?

Thanks for any input

http://www.digitalyacht.co.uk/produc...ducts_id=11679

 

[Culebra]

I don't have one, but maybe this will help. It doesn't need GPS to function because it's a receiver, not a transponder. The target positions are plotted based on the Lat/Lon information in the received AIS signals. The reason they built a multiplexing capability into it, and why they provide for connecting a GPS to it (using the multi-wire harness), is so you can merge your independent GPS data with the AIS data, and send a single data sentence to a single connection on your plotter. This solves for the problem that some plotters only have one input port.

If you have GPS connected to your plotter (or PC) on a separate port, it isn't going to get out to the receiver, and it doesn't need to.

Paul/Culebra

 

[WBChristie]

Thanks for that Paul. That does answer my question as what I was trying to figure out was if seaclear could correlate a CPA ... I guess it can because it obviously knows where my boat is and the AIS sentences will give it the position of other vessels...

 

[Wet Spreaders]

I have one of the Digital-Yacht AIS/LAN units on Akula - works well. I get the GPS via NMEA from the chartplotter and the VHF via a splitter. Easy install that I did myself.

The only downside is that I can't find a way to "log on" to the unit to set passwords and filters etc. In one respect that makes it plug-and-play foolproof. In other respects that makes it frustrating and inflexible. I'll be racing the TBF; if you are double-handing and hanging around prior to the start, feel free to hop aboard and check out my set-up. I'll be in the neighborhood of the start line at about 9:30am.