New combination VHF radio, AIS reciever/Hailer
- Thread starter thataway
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matt_unique
New member
There was a time when I cruised across the Block Island Sound with a single hand-held GPS in thick fog. Yikes....
I submit that once you get radar you will never again be without it. It's as much for the other boaters blindly following their GPS in the fog/at night as it is for your own navigation. I've had several 'radar enhanced' encounters in fog. Season before last I was cruising out in dead calm wind in the summer. We had a thick wall of fog between the mainland and an island I was heading to. I had my eyes peeled on the radar/chartplotter followed by regular scans out the windows. I asked my passengers to keep an eye on their "quadrant" based on their seat position. On my screen I see a vessel approaching from my portside. I slowed to ensure we would not meet head on. I finally slowed to idle at our closest approach point and watched this guy, with a single hand-held GPS in a center console, cruising right along at about 20 knots. He never even looked up and never spotted me.
It is scary to think of what may have happened if it were the both of us cruising with eyes focused on our hand-held!
Weather happens - and I'm sure we can all relate to heading out on days with a great marine forecast only to encounter a cell or a front causing fog. When I am underway I have the radar/chartplotter on. It's important to know what things look like on clear days so you can better interpret the data in pea soup fog or night.
AIS is great for some important applications in my opinion, but there are so many vessels, even commercial vessels, that do not use them. For example, there are several high speed passenger Cat's in Boston and they do not have AIS. These are the vessels you really have to watch for because they are virtually silent and fast. The largest vessels are carefully announcing their position and intentions on Ch 13 and they have AIS of course. I may prioritize an AIS one of these days.
I submit that once you get radar you will never again be without it. It's as much for the other boaters blindly following their GPS in the fog/at night as it is for your own navigation. I've had several 'radar enhanced' encounters in fog. Season before last I was cruising out in dead calm wind in the summer. We had a thick wall of fog between the mainland and an island I was heading to. I had my eyes peeled on the radar/chartplotter followed by regular scans out the windows. I asked my passengers to keep an eye on their "quadrant" based on their seat position. On my screen I see a vessel approaching from my portside. I slowed to ensure we would not meet head on. I finally slowed to idle at our closest approach point and watched this guy, with a single hand-held GPS in a center console, cruising right along at about 20 knots. He never even looked up and never spotted me.
It is scary to think of what may have happened if it were the both of us cruising with eyes focused on our hand-held!
Weather happens - and I'm sure we can all relate to heading out on days with a great marine forecast only to encounter a cell or a front causing fog. When I am underway I have the radar/chartplotter on. It's important to know what things look like on clear days so you can better interpret the data in pea soup fog or night.
AIS is great for some important applications in my opinion, but there are so many vessels, even commercial vessels, that do not use them. For example, there are several high speed passenger Cat's in Boston and they do not have AIS. These are the vessels you really have to watch for because they are virtually silent and fast. The largest vessels are carefully announcing their position and intentions on Ch 13 and they have AIS of course. I may prioritize an AIS one of these days.
dixoncider
New member
"and I simply don't go out if the visibility is bad" I agree that going OUT when visibility is bad is a good thing to avoid.. However it is the getting IN that you may want to worry about... FOG happens. AIS overlay on radar is great. Ais overlay on chart is great also... Doubt that radio is $400..would expect more $$$
Consumers Marine has the Standard Horizon GX2100 shown in Feb Boating magazine for $399 and on their web site it says MAP (minimum advertised price, but may be lower -- ). Check their site here:
http://www.consumersmarine.com
Now if they could get the instant replay from Cobra and the AIS from SH collected into the Ray 218 (or 258?) then I would need to replace another radio :cry
Dr. Bob, if that Standard Horizon GX2100 works out OK this weekend, and if it has output to an MFD especially C-120 it would be nice to hear. Thanks for checking into it for us :thup
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
http://www.consumersmarine.com
Now if they could get the instant replay from Cobra and the AIS from SH collected into the Ray 218 (or 258?) then I would need to replace another radio :cry
Dr. Bob, if that Standard Horizon GX2100 works out OK this weekend, and if it has output to an MFD especially C-120 it would be nice to hear. Thanks for checking into it for us :thup
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
BOE has it at $327
http://www.boemarine.com/Products/GX2100B/#fragment-3
Did you get to try it Dr Bob ?
http://www.boemarine.com/Products/GX2100B/#fragment-3
Did you get to try it Dr Bob ?
journey on
New member
And any time you think your toy is expensive, try airplane racing. They list their gasoline sponsor and every crew member on the wings/fuselage. That costs real bucks.
Our spending is down in the noise. At least that's what I tell Judy. She agrees, but then goes on to mention we're not racing airplanes.
Boris
Our spending is down in the noise. At least that's what I tell Judy. She agrees, but then goes on to mention we're not racing airplanes.
Boris
So I've been reading the owners manual for these new Standard Horizon "Matrix" models (GX2000 & GX2100), and I'm a little concerned.
I've got an email in to S-H for clarification. Here's my question for S-H:
My Raymarine C-80 chartplotter has only one NMEA port, which can be set to 38400 or 4800 baud. If I set it to 38400 baud (for the incoming AIS datastream) and connect it to either of Standard Horizon's AIS-equipped Matrix VHF units, won't the VHF receive the GPS NMEA
sentences coming from my plotter (at 38400 baud)? The manual implies that the incoming GPS datastream (AND the outgoing DSC datastream) need to be at 4800 baud, but that seems really silly. Why require a dedicated low-bandwidth connection for data that could easily be aggregated into the high-bandwidth AIS datastream?
Thanks! I'm hoping I've just misunderstood. If you want some background on my perspective, take a look at what I've written:
http://www.navagear.com/2009/11/standar ... ll-in-one/
http://www.navagear.com/2008/05/crazy-n ... 2-way-dsc/
We'll see what they say...
I've got an email in to S-H for clarification. Here's my question for S-H:
My Raymarine C-80 chartplotter has only one NMEA port, which can be set to 38400 or 4800 baud. If I set it to 38400 baud (for the incoming AIS datastream) and connect it to either of Standard Horizon's AIS-equipped Matrix VHF units, won't the VHF receive the GPS NMEA
sentences coming from my plotter (at 38400 baud)? The manual implies that the incoming GPS datastream (AND the outgoing DSC datastream) need to be at 4800 baud, but that seems really silly. Why require a dedicated low-bandwidth connection for data that could easily be aggregated into the high-bandwidth AIS datastream?
Thanks! I'm hoping I've just misunderstood. If you want some background on my perspective, take a look at what I've written:
http://www.navagear.com/2009/11/standar ... ll-in-one/
http://www.navagear.com/2008/05/crazy-n ... 2-way-dsc/
We'll see what they say...
Just saw an add for the SH vhf with AIS built in, GX2100, (Picture on page one of this thread) and wondering if there is any new news on this?
I just learned that it has a hailer/auto fog function. With some fancy wiring and a switch, I might be able to figure a way to have some redundancy for those functions now too. (The Ray 218, has both and they work well, but a belt and suspenders is always a good thing.) Still have not found anything with the Cobra's "Instant call replay" and AIS on the same unit and a third radio is out of the question, well at least out of the budget both $$$ and space wise.
Anybody have any real experience with either unit (HS GX2100 or the new Cobra) they can report here?
Inquiring minds, you know.
Harvey
SleepyC
I just learned that it has a hailer/auto fog function. With some fancy wiring and a switch, I might be able to figure a way to have some redundancy for those functions now too. (The Ray 218, has both and they work well, but a belt and suspenders is always a good thing.) Still have not found anything with the Cobra's "Instant call replay" and AIS on the same unit and a third radio is out of the question, well at least out of the budget both $$$ and space wise.
Anybody have any real experience with either unit (HS GX2100 or the new Cobra) they can report here?
Inquiring minds, you know.
Harvey
SleepyC
At the risk of seeming to self-promote, my write-up is available here:
Standard Horizon’s new VHF radios with AIS integration
Standard Horizon’s new VHF radios with AIS integration
Tim, Self promote away. Good write-up on the SH GX2100 vhf with AIS built in. It looks like the cats meow, but for many of us who would be interested, I am glad that you got the bit about the dual baud rate. If I understand, it could still be used on a C Series Raymarine, but it would require the bus ($300 something).
So, you said you were going to install one when you got that little quirk worked out. Have you yet?
I know Dr Bob was going to get a chance to use one of these radios too, and maybe he will chime in with how it worked, (and what it was hooked up to). They do fill a certain need for some of us.
Thanks for all your comments.
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
So, you said you were going to install one when you got that little quirk worked out. Have you yet?
I know Dr Bob was going to get a chance to use one of these radios too, and maybe he will chime in with how it worked, (and what it was hooked up to). They do fill a certain need for some of us.
Thanks for all your comments.
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
Hayesie Daze
New member
I just purchased one for the SH Matrix GX2100W for $300 and added the RAM3 Second Station mic. Although I have been closely following the threads I pulled the trigger because even it it can't be integrated fully with my Lowrance Radar and Plotter I felt that having the information displayed on the actual unit would also be very beneficial (worse case) so I can run and see who is about to wake me out while at anchor in my favorite Halibut spot. I will keep you posted when they arrive on any success integrating the unit with my Lcx 28 Plotter.
I just had an interesting conversation with Standard Horizon Tech Support about the GX2100 and it's compatibility with my older Standard Horizon CP1000C Plotter. I thought I'd share it while it's fresh in my mind as it may inform others.
1st, a screen shot of the wiring diagram of the GX2100.
While my unit offers 3 NMEA inputs and 3 NMEA outputs I was concerned that it only accepts Baud Rates of 300, 1200, 2400, 4800 or
9600 and not the 34.8K shown above.
Tech informed me that my unit will NOT be able to overlay Class B(typically smaller, private vessels) AIS data on my display but WILL overlay Class A(large commercial vessels) AIS data.
I know that there are only a few of us here using Standard Horizon Plotters but this might be helpful to others with similar limitations.
1st, a screen shot of the wiring diagram of the GX2100.
While my unit offers 3 NMEA inputs and 3 NMEA outputs I was concerned that it only accepts Baud Rates of 300, 1200, 2400, 4800 or
9600 and not the 34.8K shown above.
Tech informed me that my unit will NOT be able to overlay Class B(typically smaller, private vessels) AIS data on my display but WILL overlay Class A(large commercial vessels) AIS data.
I know that there are only a few of us here using Standard Horizon Plotters but this might be helpful to others with similar limitations.