Horizon AIS/VHF radio

Hello Guys

Does any of you have this equipment on board?
Standard Horizon GX2150 Class D 25W Matrix AIS.
What's your opinion about it?
Thanks

There is presently no VHF in the US that can send, only received. Also AIS has little to do with VHF if it has it's own antenna and connect to electronic charts. AIS receiver A only receives cost around 300 bucks, AIS trans receiver B, sends and receives cost 600 bucks. So if you want to send and received you are going to have to buy a separate AIS trans receiver, so don't spend the extra money for the VHF with a AIS receiver.

Most of the AIS as made by SI-TEX and packed for different brands. They are all basically the same. I plan on buying a SI-TEX trans receiver B as soon as I get my new Nobeltex Odyssey chart program up and running.

I posted under Electronics for under 5,000 bucks as diagram connection for AIS. As you will see there is no VHF.

Hi Phil

Thanks for your reply

That's exactly why I put this thread on. It seemed to be too much bait for my hook. I have everything Garmin but the AP. Maybe I'll follow you on SI-TEX.

Regards
P.

Portuguese said:

Hi Phil

Thanks for your reply

That's exactly why I put this thread on. It seemed to be too much bait for my hook. I have everything Garmin but the AP. Maybe I'll follow you on SI-TEX.

Regards
P.

Click to expand...

I would buy Gramin if every thing else is Gramin.

My point was most associate AIS with VHF. It more associated with GPS and Electrinics charts. So its a waste of money to buy an expensive VHF with AIS if you want to SEND and receive.

I installed a GX2150 last year and have it feeding AIS info to my laptop running Nobeltec.
As far as the VHF I love it, very clear and a Nice big display. Have a ram mike on the command bridge and it handle all the features of the radio remotely. Nice unit.

Phil, I think the differences between class A & B in your post is incorrect, both class A & B are transceivers. Automatic Identification System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 2150 is very popular among smaller boats who have limited space for electronics. A DSC radio already has interconnections to the GPS on the boat by definition, and the VHF and AIS functions can share the same antenna. So it makes for a clean, simple installation.

Lots of discussion on this forum (an excellent electronics forum), do a search:

Marine Electronics Forum - The Hull Truth - Boating and Fishing Forum

I have used one for a couple of years and found it a nice radio and very good AIS receiver. The sensitivity of the receiver is excellent on AIS showing targets in Coastal Explorer that are sometimes 30 or more miles away (if I am zoomed out that far). Correlating targets to visual sightings with the AIS is sometimes difficult unless you pay attention to distances and understand how far you can see over the water. The AIS will plot many targets that you can't paint with radar and you can't see either because of their distance away. Don't plan on using the AIS display on the 2150 since it doesn't really tell you much other than their are targets out there and the general direction and distance they are away unless you drill into them on the menu. In that respect it is much easier to do that in Coastal Explorer with a right click. I generally use the 2150 display to alert me to zoom out a window on Coastal Explorer to look at the target if I think there is some reason for concern. I put the usefulness factor in Alaska as about 30% and neat factor at 70%. The most useful part of it is routing around bow pickers and seiners which you can find by locating the tenders and avoiding tour boats.

I have one also. It's an excellent VHF and the AIs function serves me well until I step up to a tranceiver.

To those running it to laptops.....how are you guys doing it? Just a plain NEMA feed or does the radio have a special adapter that I don't see in the literature?

My plan was to buy that radio to replace my current SH radio which works fine. I realized that I would have to enlarge the mounting hole for the radio, buy a new RAM mic, etc. so for now the plan is on hold.

If I needed a new VHF, that is the one I would buy.

psneeld said:

To those running it to laptops.....how are you guys doing it? Just a plain NEMA feed or does the radio have a special adapter that I don't see in the literature?

Click to expand...

We're still in the dark ages but a friend has an AMEC receiver that plugs into his laptop via a USB cable which also supplies power to the receiver. He's running Open CPN.

psneeld said:

To those running it to laptops.....how are you guys doing it? Just a plain NEMA feed or does the radio have a special adapter that I don't see in the literature?

Click to expand...

I don't have that specific radio but I do have an NMEA connection between my Standard Horizon radio and my laptop. In my case the laptop only has one DB9 comm port which is connected to my autopilot. The autopilot has the ability to output NMEA so I have it connected to the radio. There were 3 wires hanging out the back of the radio for the NMEA connection - just hook them up - QED.

psneeld said:

To those running it to laptops.....how are you guys doing it? Just a plain NEMA feed or does the radio have a special adapter that I don't see in the literature?

Click to expand...

I used a USB Breakout cable from Milltech to bring the AIS signal to the laptop as its baud rate(38400 baud) is much higher than our GPS(4800 baud) signal. Two wires to hook up and a new driver installed for a virtual comm port via a USB port. Works like a charm. Have done this on some friends boats and everyone is happy.

rochepoint said:

I used a USB Breakout cable from Milltech to bring the AIS signal to the laptop as its baud rate(38400 baud) is much higher than our GPS(4800 baud) signal. Two wires to hook up and a new driver installed for a virtual comm port via a USB port. Works like a charm. Have done this on some friends boats and everyone is happy.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

I plan on adding a SH2150 to my boat this year and replacing the SH1250 I have now. I currently don't have a big boat and adding a true AIS system isn't feasible. I do like the ability now to show my friends on my Garmin 545s GPS through the MMSI "friend" feature of the SH1250. I would like to see the "big boys" automatically. My cousin has the Garmin 4000 GPS and the SH2150 VHF. I love how it shows the active targets automatically. If you don't plan to add the AIS transceiver, then I think this is the way to go.
I agree if with Phil Fill, that if you DO plan to add AIS, then the 2150 will be wasted.

It seems that Standard Horizon is about to get some competition. Simrad has announced their new R35 VHF/AIS radio. I was hoping to see one of these at the boat show, but they didn't have one in the Navico booth.

RS35 VHF/AIS Radio - Simrad Yachting

I'm using an Actisense NMEA multiplexer with a USB interface to the laptop. It makes it easier to tie things together that operate at different baud rates.