AIS for Ray E120/E80 Classic

Hey Guys,

I'm considering adding AIS to my aging electronics. I have 2 E80 Classics on the bridge and a E120 classic below. All are still working fine (fingers crossed) so I'm not really planning on replacement any time soon.

I'd like to find a simple, inexpensive way to add an AIS receiver. Any suggestions?

As a side note, I did a little e-Bay shopping and I'm shocked at how much the E classics are still worth. Well over $500 each.

I just replaced my DSM, had the radar rebuilt and the 120 refurbished by Raymarine, so I'm pretty confident in the system.

I use a Standard Horizon GX2150 to feed my similar Raymarine setup. Works fine.

In any case make sure the MFDs are running the last software release - 5.69.

A friend has a Vesper Marine XB-8000 networked to his E120 Classic, but I imagine there are cheaper solutions, especially if you don't care about having a transponder. Perhaps one of the VHF radios with integrated AIS networked over NMEA0183?

I've been impressed with the support from Doug at Milltech Marine. He specializes in AIS equipment and is a boater...he should be able to answer your question specifically! Welcome to Milltech Marine - your AIS experts

The standard horizon VHF looks interesting. Do you know if the DSC function goes through the NMEA cable? I just replaced the VHF on my FB and couldn't get the DSC to work as the cable isn't really compatible with my MFD/GPS. As a result I'm nursing the Raymarine VHF at the lower helm along as best I can.

Please forgive me if I've asked a dumb question, I'm really clueless on all of the networking stuff. I don't really understand the different NMEA cables.

Doug,There's a 5-pin nmea plug on your E classic that you'll need to interface anything that's not Raymarine to it. It's hard to tell from your posts if you've been using nmea or seatalk. They're (the nmea plug) kind of scarce nowadays so hopefully if it's not plugged in/ being used on your E120 it's with the paperwork or in a drawer somewhere.
After you get it interfaced to an AIS receiver, the AIS targets will show up but are rather hard to see little gray triangles but better than nothing.

Raymarine gear of that vintage came with one of my boats. Although I have an AIS hooked up to it (just a cheap generic receiver from Miltech), I have to say that the display is worse than useless. It simply does not scale the targets to their actual size and it clutters things up in a really ugly way. I am running Coastal Explorer on a small Windows tablet in the same boat and the AIS display is much, much better. In my opinion that old Raymarine stuff is good for radar and not much else.

Dougcole said:

The standard horizon VHF looks interesting. Do you know if the DSC function goes through the NMEA cable?

Click to expand...

Yup, it connects to an MFD via NMEA. Here are the instructions I used for connecting my unit. Your unit should be similar-ish.

SteveD said:

Raymarine gear of that vintage came with one of my boats. Although I have an AIS hooked up to it (just a cheap generic receiver from Miltech), I have to say that the display is worse than useless. It simply does not scale the targets to their actual size and it clutters things up in a really ugly way. I am running Coastal Explorer on a small Windows tablet in the same boat and the AIS display is much, much better. In my opinion that old Raymarine stuff is good for radar and not much else.

Click to expand...

Just a request for those with AIS transceivers, please shut down your AIS when not under way! There are limits to the number of AIS target that can be tracked on many receivers. If all the transceivers in the boats parked in their slips are broadcasting, it can overwhelm some receivers. It also makes it impossible to differentiate those targets that are actually moving, or about to start moving, from all the stupid folks broadcasting from their slips 24/7.

danderer said:

Yup, it connects to an MFD via NMEA. Here are the instructions I used for connecting my unit. Your unit should be similar-ish.

Click to expand...

The colors are right (white/green yellow/brown) but the diagram is confusing because that's a data plug for the Raymarine wide ,which is different from the classic. The drawing will still be helpful for doug, I'm sure.
Also, like the diagram mentions,don't forget to set your Raymarine nmea port to hi speed & also turn the AIS targets "on" in the preference settings on the chart screen.

dhays said:

Just a request for those with AIS transceivers, please shut down your AIS when not under way! There are limits to the number of AIS target that can be tracked on many receivers. If all the transceivers in the boats parked in their slips are broadcasting, it can overwhelm some receivers. It also makes it impossible to differentiate those targets that are actually moving, or about to start moving, from all the stupid folks broadcasting from their slips 24/7.

Click to expand...

I'm curious what devices get overwhelmed by too many targets?

Most display devices can filter targets based on distance and movement. So targets more than say a mile away won't show up. And the speed filter is probably the most useful, filtering out any target moving less that say 1kt. That will clean out all the docked boats, and only show those moving which seems exactly what one would want.

I believe there is much more latitude with class B, but class A is supposed to be left on all the time. There is a provision to mute transmissions under special circumstances, but they are exceptions, and not meant for usual operation.

twistedtree said:

I'm curious what devices get overwhelmed by too many targets?

Most display devices can filter targets based on distance and movement. So targets more than say a mile away won't show up. And the speed filter is probably the most useful, filtering out any target moving less that say 1kt. That will clean out all the docked boats, and only show those moving which seems exactly what one would want.

I believe there is much more latitude with class B, but class A is supposed to be left on all the time. There is a provision to mute transmissions under special circumstances, but they are exceptions, and not meant for usual operation.

Click to expand...

You are correct that Class A need to be left on. However, most pleasure craft (in the TF size anyway) have Class B transceivers which don't have the be left on. Some of the older AIS receivers connected to plotters do have limits on the number of targets they can track and don't necessarily have the filters.

For a Class B transceiver I see no advantage to not turning it off when away from the boat, other than maybe to keep someone like me from remembering to turn it on again.

By the way, I don't have any objection to people turning them off. But I don't think it's a realistic solution to older devices that can't handle the proliferation of AIS equipped boats. Filtering is the way to solve the problem, because it's the only thing you can control. The whole point of AIS is to get it widely used, and with that come these issues. Early implementations clearly didn't envision how widespread it's use would become, hence the limitations you describe. Filtering out Class B devices is another example of a well-intentioned way to reduce clutter, that is actually pretty brain-dead when you think about what AIS does, and what a captain's responsibilities are. Filtering based on non-movement, and being out of range are more useful, and consistent with a captain's responsibilities.

Now if only I could find my magic wand and make it so........

twistedtree said:

Now if only I could find my magic wand and make it so........

Click to expand...

So true!

danderer said:

Yup, it connects to an MFD via NMEA. Here are the instructions I used for connecting my unit. Your unit should be similar-ish.

Click to expand...

That looks pretty straight forward. Thanks.