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Old 01-29-2019, 01:40 PM   #11
STB
Guru
 
City: Gulf coast
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 2,271
The least expensive class A AIS unit I could find with NMEA-2000 is the McMurdo SmartFind M5 AIS Class A. It looks nice, and seems to have a nice color display (vs monochroe on the em-trak). But, I haven't heard any chatter about them.


There is one listed as "new" for sale on eBay for $1289:
-- https://www.ebay.com/itm/McMurdo-AIS...YwS:rk:12:pf:0

...beyond that, they seem to be up at the $1800-$2000 price range.


So, comparing that to the $749 em-trak A100 unit at West Marine + the $200 for the NMEA-2000<->NMEA-0183 bridge, the A100 would still come in $300 - $500 less expensive. Of course, it would also still come in without a color display!

But, the math for me didn't quite work like that. I need the NMEA bridge to get my DSC data into my OpenCPN chart plotter, anyway. So, in some sense, that part is free to me. And, my savings (for the loss of color) is $600 - $1000.

If the Miniplex unit works, I get to remove my ST-1<->ST-NG bridge and get WiFi with additional device, so the amount of "stuff" I have doesn't really go up..

Yeah. I looked at that vyacht device. It is about $200, which is nice. I like the idea of the software being open source, but as you said, it doesn't do the bridging I need.

I think I can actually get the C-series classic to do the bridging I need. But, I don't want to go that route. I want to use it only a a fishfinder, and leave the rest independent of it.

Cheers -- and thanks again!
-Greg
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