VHF Options and Recommendations

Tolly Roger said:

VHF with built in AIS are great as receivers (remember most do not send your AIS position), just make sure you can connect the radio to your chartplotter so the AIS targets appear there. That's where you want them...

DSC calling is another great tool to have and if used properly can be a real asset. It is true that newer units can call another boat that is displaying their MMSI # by a single tap on your chartplotter screen.

Click to expand...

Standard Horizon and ICOM marine VHF transceivers with AIS receive capability can display AIS targets on their own screen and you can select from among those AIS targets to send DSC calls. You don't need to be connected to a chart plotter for that, though the displays on these little radios are crap compared to any decent chart plotter.

Budds Outlet said:

Also per the Standard Horizon's website, the GX2200 will "Contact Class A or B AIS Ship with DSC".


Now, what is an A or B ship in AIS parlance?

Click to expand...

That statement is a bit miss-leading. The VHFs DSC will also call a space ship and Santa's Sleigh if they have DSC VHFs.

AIS and DSC are really two completely different things. AIS exchanges ships position, course, and speed, and DSC is a ship calling mechanism.

As for the difference between class A and B, you can find lots on the subject by searching this forum. I have always been a strong proponent of Class B, arguing that the incremental features of Class A are of little value to recreational boaters. I see you are from the Puget Sound area so will share another significant difference that I recently learned. The Puget Sound VTS (vessel traffic service) does not receive Class B, so they are blind to Class B vessels. They will happily tell a ship that an area is clear even if it is littered with boats transmitting Class B position info. Personally I think that's pretty irresponsible of them, but it's true. I'm seriously considering upgrading to Class A as a result.

This discussion bring up the whole question of AIS receivers vs AIS transceivers.

For those new to the topic, an AIS receiver only receives position reports from other ships and does not report your position. It only takes.

A transceiver BOTH receives other boat's reports, AND sends your ships position report. It gives and takes.

AIS is only as good as the position reports that appear on your screen, and if you are not reporting your position, you are not contributing to the usefulness of the system. The system only gets better if people transmit their position as well as receive others positions.

Personally, I think these receive-only devices are a terrible thing because they allow people to benefit from the system without also contributing to it. As we can see from this thread and many, many others, the temptation to add a VHF with AIS receiver is huge, and once done I'd venture to say that most boaters consider their job done. Great, you have helped yourself, but done nothing for the rest of us.

You are welcome for my AIS report. But if you are going to use it, please reciprocate.

Receive-only AIS has always seemed to me like driving on a highway at night where I keep my headlights off and nobody else can see me, but at least I can see other drivers. I guess that enhances collision avoidance for some drivers, but...

If I get my radio in time I'm calling Santa cuz I also want a radar unit.


You are correct in that we here in Puget Sound are subject to the VTS which basically turns the sound into a shipping channel with ships having the stand on position no matter which way they are going as long as they are in the traffic lane. In the VTS lanes a receive only radio is about all that's useful as none of these ships are going to deviate course for a pleasure craft anyway. That is why I suspect the ships don't monitor Class B transmissions. I agree however that having more pleasure boats with AIS transceivers will make boating safer.


The GX2200 appears to have another very useful feature in that it will compute time and distance to closing with another vessel. This in itself makes this type of radio valuable in Puget Sound with all the shipping and ferry traffic.


Having bought my last radio in 2008 I am amazed (but not surprised) with the progress in radio technology and what has become available to the average boater at a very reasonable price point. Viva La Progress!

Well, even if the big guys do ignore or turn off Class B on their displays it still helps me avoid them, and at least the B's can see each other. I don't want to get pulverized by the Queen Mary but I don't want to slam into somebody's sailboat either. I understand the big guys don't want their displays cluttered with a cloud of Bayliner/weekend sailor blips, but I do.

Oh I totally agree ! What I like most about AIS is the ability to see a Container ship around a blind corner or a BC Ferry in Active Pass.

The skippers I feel for here on Puget Sound are the ferry captains. They are threading their way back and forth through a fleet of pleasure craft all day long. I have seen them stop/alter course to avoid running down some idiot who thought they were the stand on vessel just because they did not have an engine running. In these situations, its not who's right that counts, its who's left.

Budds Outlet said:

The skippers I feel for here on Puget Sound are the ferry captains. They are threading their way back and forth through a fleet of pleasure craft all day long. I have seen them stop/alter course to avoid running down some idiot who thought they were the stand on vessel just because they did not have an engine running. In these situations, its not who's right that counts, its who's left.

Click to expand...

Indeed. I spent 5 years on an aircraft carrier, where the law of gross tonnage rarely loses.....

Pau Hana said:

Indeed. I spent 5 years on an aircraft carrier, where the law of gross tonnage rarely loses.....

Click to expand...

Roger that, I was aboard Hancock and Enterprise . . . . . they say the bigger the boat, the righter the way.

Pau Hana said:

I like the idea of 2 radios; here's how I'm set up with 2 radios.

Both radios have remote mike capability, so I have a head unit on the flybridge and one at the lower helm. The remote mikes are run to opposite station. Each radio is interfaced with its corresponding head unit for DSC and AIS info.

Works great!

Click to expand...

Exactly my strategy too, other than the AIS bit. Comes in very handy.
Standard Horizon here.

Given the proliferation of AIS-equipped VHFs, I though of another caution.

I tried using two VHFs, both with AIS, and both on N2K. I ended up with issues because vendors don't seem to agree on how to handle multiple AIS devices on the same network. I couldn't turn the AIS reports on/off on N2K at the VHFs, and the various displays that show AIS targets can't be told which AIS receiver to listen to. Confusion reigned. And AIS reports take up a lot of network bandwidth, so you really don't want more of them running than needed.

I ended up changing both VHFs to non-AIS versions so the only AIS device was my transceiver. Now everything works, but I've got no backup if the main AIS dies.