AIS systems

psneeld said:

Not for some of us...they are homes, second homes, transportation, offices...etc...etc...

And not all of us go to West Marine and clean of the shelves every time a paycheck comes in...

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Geezzz..live on a boat?? Where would i put the tractor, and the cattle not to mention a few million bees and tons of tools. I could slim down but life without bees or my old old old tractor would be like life without beer. I would soon be captured by the guys in the white suits

bfloyd4445 said:

Geezzz..live on a boat?? Where would i put the tractor, and the cattle not to mention a few million bees and tons of tools. I could slim down but life without bees or my old old old tractor would be like life without beer. I would soon be captured by the guys in the white suits

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landlubber.....

psneeld said:

landlubber.....

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Who me?.......i deserved that.
I was trapped in an elevator twenty feet below ground in the reactor building of Rancho Seco atomic power plant for six hours back in 1980 and after than i began to be a bit sensitive in tight places. Boats can be like an extension of our body instilling within one a sense of being part of the sea and sky. Living on a boat away from the marina would be great but in a crowded elevator like marina, don't think so. That said I envy those that can and do.

psneeld said:

If you can't eyeball that intercept driving a less than 20 knot vessel.... either visually or on a small radar even without MARPA.... holy cow...especially with your experience...

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Not saying I can't. But, what I AM saying it that's it very handy having a chartplotter that will acquire a Radar target, automatically fix on it, display it's speed, bearing, call sign, MMSI and much more, while constantly advising our closest point of approach.

You can call it an unnecessary toy, is a pretty useful tool. I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy one. Someone asked, I wanted to share my experience, and I hope I've done that.

SomeSailor said:

I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy one. Someone asked, I wanted to share my experience, and I hope I've done that.

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Yes, you have. As have several others on this thread. I've learned a lot about AIS and the potential uses for it. It's been an interesting read and while I continue to believe it has no practical application in our own boating and the way we operate, I have a greater appreciation of its capabilities.

Most small boat cruisers...
1. Look at chart
2. Steer boat clear of shipping lane or like crossing a highway...find shrotest cut across...look both ways..run like heck.
3.See boat near them
4.Steer away from boat so as not to hit it.
5.Enjoy low stress, low brain activity cruise.
6.Tie up and enjoy happy hour with friends swapping stories about todays cruise.

Some Small boat cruisers...
1. Turn on AIS
2. Get so fascinated will all the info they forget to cruise today OR yell "Honey, its too crowded out there today, let's just play golf."
3. Turn off AIS, sit at bar and tell yachting buddies about all the imagined voyages of all these great ships....or comment on which ferry was off schedule.

Marin said:

Yes, you have. As have several others on this thread. I've learned a lot about AIS and the potential uses for it. It's been an interesting read and while I continue to believe it has no practical application in our own boating and the way we operate, I have a greater appreciation of its capabilities.

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As have I, thanks to all. Based on what I've read in the thread, I'm going to upgrade my old Furuno, AND purchase the SH radio with AIS to interface with my SH CP500. Keep my chart table equipped with paper charts, and keep looking out the datum windows. Sailing at night always keep an extra watch.

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

If you hook your VHF to your GPS, when you press the "little red" button it will also transmit your position....

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Provided they are both powered on and the GPS has been on long enough to get a fix on your position.

Obvious you say? Perhaps to one of us but if you don't put that in your instructions to someone who may have to do this in an emergency, they might sit there all day pushing the little red button and wondering when help will arrive.

Just an observation; but an ongoing one. This forum seems to focus more on debating technology, technique or brand, than actually taking the time to listen and share.

If you've never seen MARPA & AIS in action, you're missing an opportunity to better understand the capability of your equipment. It's just a tool. There isn't even an "On" button to worry about.

I have a ais transmitter/receiver.

Makes me feel like one of the big boys, maybe a 75' Fleming or a 1000' freighter.

SomeSailor said:

Just an observation; but an ongoing one. This forum seems to focus more on debating technology, technique or brand, than actually taking the time to listen and share.

If you've never seen MARPA & AIS in action, you're missing an opportunity to better understand the capability of your equipment. It's just a tool. There isn't even an "On" button to worry about.

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Some of us have had experience with RADAR tracking since it was first getting popular in the military and commercial circles some 30 years ago if I correctly remember some of the first ones being fitted on USCG cutters.

I have lot's of experience with those and then when the smaller RADAR's such as the Raymarine Pathfinder series got popular around 2001, I was using those several times a week when I capatained for a Sea Ray dealership.

I'm not debating the technology...only it's usefulness to the average small boat skipper in certain situations rather than broad stoking it and saying it's REALY or NOT REALLY useful. Having instructed hand's on boating for almost 20 years now...most skippers have their hands full driving, looking ahead and scanning their engine instruments...throwing in the chartplotter and depthfinder info is why many blow into no wake zones or wander out of a narrow channel. To even remotely suggest that it's a "safety" enhancer to that crowd is a disservice to them as it's just another distraction....plus these are the type skippers who shouldn't be out in the goo in the first place. For experienced skippers in lousy weather it's great.

"Just an observation; but an ongoing one. This forum seems to focus more on debating technology, technique or brand, than actually taking the time to listen and share."

Disagreements have two sides and the other side always seems to fit this statement....

psneeld said:

Most small boat cruisers...
1. Look at chart
2. Steer boat clear of shipping lane or like crossing a highway...find shrotest cut across...look both ways..run like heck.
3.See boat near them
4.Steer away from boat so as not to hit it.
5.Enjoy low stress, low brain activity cruise.
6.Tie up and enjoy happy hour with friends swapping stories about todays cruise.

Some Small boat cruisers...
1. Turn on AIS
2. Get so fascinated will all the info they forget to cruise today OR yell "Honey, its too crowded out there today, let's just play golf."
3. Turn off AIS, sit at bar and tell yachting buddies about all the imagined voyages of all these great ships....or comment on which ferry was off schedule.

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or become so absorbed by the electronic gadgets that they fail to keep watch and crash into an island ofr maybe a ferry!..kinda like using a cell phone while driving

psneeld said:

Some of us have had experience with RADAR tracking since it was first getting popular in the military and commercial circles some 30 years ago if I correctly remember some of the first ones being fitted on USCG cutters.

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I was operating the APS-80, APS-115 and APS-137 airborne Radar systems from early 1982.

It was around well over 30 years before that even.

Wikipedia....

Development of ARPA started after the accident when the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria collided in dense fog and sank off the east coast of the United States. ARPA radars started to emerge in the 1960s and, with the development of microelectronics. The first commercially available ARPA was delivered to the cargo liner MV Taimyr in 1969[1] and was manufactured by Norcontrol, now a part of Kongsberg Maritime. ARPA-enabled radars are now available even for small yachts.

You don't need AIS to enable MARPA on a Garmin chartplotter. You only need a heading source and Radar. I have a guard zone set to 5 miles ahead of me and about 135 degrees wide. AIS ties into it if you want to see who the target is if they are transmitting AIS data.

If you ever travel in the fog or even in tight quarters where you're expecting a ferry to come around a corner, or out of the rain, it's very handy. Even for smaller boats, I'll set them as I see them and then get a visual on them as they close.

It's just good watchstanding for me and part of what I enjoy about boating. I enjoy knowing who that tanker is coming down the channel at me. I like knowing where we'll intercept and whether I'll cross ahead of her or in her wake. I like seeing how other ships and boats are passing and transiting.

It's good technology.

psneeld said:

Wikipedia....

Development of ARPA started after the accident when the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria collided in dense fog and sank off the east coast of the United States. ARPA radars started to emerge in the 1960s and, with the development of microelectronics. The first commercially available ARPA was delivered to the cargo liner MV Taimyr in 1969[1] and was manufactured by Norcontrol, now a part of Kongsberg Maritime. ARPA-enabled radars are now available even for small yachts.

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you mean there are diferent kind of radars?....Geez....you guys vare teaching me i am really dumb in regards to many boating technologies.
Whats ARPA?

Hey, wish to thank you psneeld and others that have posted at this forum for banging into me hard head some new stuff. Golly, I used to know everything untill you guys came along.....Thank you sir

..the good thing is if you guys keep it up I will soon know everything again.....chuckle..

There are many types of Radars, but they all work on the same principles. You send electromagnetic energy down range, start counting and catch what bounces back. I helped field the first article APG-82 Radar just before I retired. The AESA Radar antennas don't even rotate. They are electronically steered and can see a nickel falling out of an airplane 10 miles ahead of you.

ARPA really isn't a Radar per say but a processing logic that identifies a Radar target to the operator and then can follow that target once designated. It can also warn you if that target is lost, or a new target appears in what is called your Guard Zone. This is all possible on a $2000 Garmin Radar. Pretty amazing.

SomeSailor said:

There are many types of Radars, but they all work on the same principles. You send electromagnetic energy down range, start counting and catch what bounces back. I helped field the first article APG-82 Radar just before I retired. The AESA Radar antennas don't even rotate. They are electronically steered and can see a nickel falling out of an airplane 10 miles ahead of you.

ARPA really isn't a Radar per say but a processing logic that identifies a Radar target to the operator and then can follow that target once designated. It can also warn you if that target is lost, or a new target appears in what is called your Guard Zone. This is all possible on a $2000 Garmin Radar. Pretty amazing.

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Humm..is ARPA discriminating enough to not be confused by weather like fog giving crip clean accurate tracks on your plotter?

Mine does not have ARPA, it has MARPA (lite version)

But yes. That is dependent on the power and resolution of the Radar, but I am always watching targets disappear into the wet and fog when we're out and I like to see how well my Radar holds on. AIS is coming in off VHF, so that will stay beyond Radar range.

SomeSailor said:

Mine does not have ARPA, it has MARPA (lite version)

But yes. That is dependent on the power and resolution of the Radar, but I am always watching targets disappear into the wet and fog when we're out and I like to see how well my Radar holds on. AIS is coming in off VHF, so that will stay beyond Radar range.

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ok, here goes. Whats the diference between ARPA and MARPA?

MARPA is the slower, less featured version of ARPA. With MARPA you need to manually designate targets and it'll then track them across your screen.

MARPA and AIS add a lot of functionality to your chartplotter, but I'd suppose no one on here has use for MARPA either. It's just another "toy" feature that most good chartplotters have on them now.

Sure as I have all along...all these features are of great value to the commercial guy or recreational guy that is out there day and night, good weather and bad.

To the fair weather sailor..it's just a toy or distraction.

Snide remarks just show the quality of the poster's integrity and true experience in a rather large field of expertise.

psneeld said:

Sure as I have all along...all these features are of great value to the commercial guy or recreational guy that is out there day and night, good weather and bad.

To the fair weather sailor..it's just a toy or distraction.

Snide remarks just show the quality of the poster's integrity and true experience in a rather large field of expertise.

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But fair weather sailors can get caught off gaurd by a weather front. I see toys of this nature in the same light as a seat belt or air bag in a car.

bfloyd4445 said:

But fair weather sailors can get caught off gaurd by a weather front. I see toys of this nature in the same light as a seat belt or air bag in a car.

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if you get "caught" by weather you need to learn more about weather as weather forecasting while not exact is only about nice to uncomfortable...life threatening and you just don't get it.

bfloyd4445 said:

But fair weather sailors can get caught off gaurd by a weather front.

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It's not at all uncommon in the islands, particularly in the fall, to be out in blue-sky weather and come around the end of an island to find the channel in front of you totally socked in with "almost can't see the bow rail"-dense fog that might only extend up one or two hundred feet off the water but might as well go all the way to the moon once you're in it. And this fog is never predicted in the forecasts other than "areas of fog" in the very broad-brush "northern inland waters" forecast. Could be here, could be there, could disappear here only to appear over there.

This is one of the main reasons why we always operate the boat "on instruments" even if the visibility is fine. By monitoring the radar it keeps us aware of what targets look like and keeps us in practice using the adjustable range and bearing rings and lines on the display.

And we almost always follow a plotted course even if we're going to one of the places we go many times a year. It keeps us up to speed in tracking a course and making corrections in the right direction to stay on it. That way when the times come that we do come around an island to confront a blanked-out channel, we aren't struggling to shift mental gears between steering totally visually and steering on instruments while at the same time trying to decipher the "picture" off the radar of what's around us.

These shots were taken during the last year or so on a run back to Bellingham from Westsound on Orcas.

psneeld said:

Snide remarks just show the quality of the poster's integrity and true experience in a rather large field of expertise.

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I'm not sure what your point is?

SomeSailor said:

I'm not sure what your point is?

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Originally Posted by psneeld
Snide remarks just show the quality of the poster's integrity and true experience in a rather large field of expertise.

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That's a great example of a "snide remark" right there.

SomeSailor
Any thoughts on broad band for recreational users?

rwidman said:

[/I]That's a great example of a "snide remark" right there.

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Gotcha. I simply don't understand what you mean by it I guess. If you'll ask more directly, I'd be happy to answer without coming off so "snidely"

SomeSailor said:

I'd be happy to answer without coming off so "snidely"

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Thought I'd beat RTF to this: