Marine radio w/ AIS transceiver

[STELLA31]

Hey captain eric.
Man overboard system. Thats one use.
Its a stupid way to use a man overboard system.
But if some knucklehead convinces another knucklehead that its a great idea.
Bam.... its a thing now.
Thanks Mobilarm and the Aus government

[svmobert]

SH has been advertising this radio for a couple of years. It's not coming any time soon. It hasn't passed FCC, and in fact according to the USCG AIS regulator I spoke with in November no manufacturer has submitted a VHF+AIS Transponder combination for approval. He does not expect anyone will get one submitted and approved for a long time due to a number of requirements in the AIS legal spec.

Also, a few things to note..

Antenna splitters are not regulated at all, and are not part of the AIS spec. If a manufacturer integrated a splitter into the same unit as a VHF and AIS it would fail certification in 30 seconds by merely holding the mic button down on the VHF radio. This is why the 6500 has two antenna connections, because it would 100% fail the current certification test with a built-in splitter.

You could still use a splitter outside the unit to share an antenna. But that doesn't matter much since the 6500 hasn't been certified anyway.

All that said, the same USCG AIS regulator told me that while he does not like splitters in general, he prefers a splitter for a sloop vs two antennas because of the extended range for AIS in that scenario. Higher is better and you can't put two antennas at the masthead. For a Ketch/yawl/etc with two masts then two antennas is preferred.

Someday we may see a combo unit.. most likely once new software-defined radios hit the market. Those radios will be able to send digital data alongside the voice (think a newer version of DSC) and that digital data could include AIS data as well. Once that happens, all of the certification issues we have now will be moot.

[FlyingScot]

The future looks promising. This is the first time I've seen Navico post any info of a combined VHF and AIS transmit/receive. https://www.bandg.com/bg/type/vhf-ai...is-rxtx-v60-b/

Of course this comes after I bought a V90s black box VHF and separate Digital Yacht AIT5000.

[Don C L]

That piqued my interest, I called local dealer and it was news to him since they’ve been waiting for it. He said yep it’s there and it’s $1200. But he recommended an ais by si-Tex with an internal splitter and 5w for $800. I’m going to do more research

[svmobert]

Originally Posted by Don C L

That piqued my interest, I called local dealer and it was news to him since they’ve been waiting for it. He said yep it’s there and it’s $1200. But he recommended an ais by si-Tex with an internal splitter and 5w for $800. I’m going to do more research

It's currently available for pre-order, no estimated ship date yet. MSRP $1099.

FCC License has already been granted though so it's going to be soon. Also, from the one picture in the FCC grant that is not confidential, it looks like it has two antenna connections, presumably one for VHF radio and one for AIS. You could theoretically still use an antenna splitter behind it to share one antenna, just like two different devices.

This model also supports two Wireless mics and I like the inductive charging they use since that eliminates corrosion on the charging contacts.

Overall pretty slick unit from what I can see so far.

[Rusty007]

Originally Posted by Don C L

That piqued my interest, I called local dealer and it was news to him since they’ve been waiting for it. He said yep it’s there and it’s $1200. But he recommended an ais by si-Tex with an internal splitter and 5w for $800. I’m going to do more research

Who was the dealer? If you want a 5W AIS then you could use the Simrad V3100.

[Pizzazz]

Let's be transparent about the certification process requirements. Logically, if you use the same antenna for receive and transmit, you may miss some receives (even that is not certain because there is a de-conflicting mechanism built into the protocol). The cost of adding AIS transmit is something like $10 at most. The rest and the delays are the certification requirements. There is absolutely no reason for an AIS receive VHF radio to cost more than $250 and a transponder to cost more than $300. At $1,000 there will be very few boaters who will install one.

Options:
- Dedicated unit
- Some PC controlled low power VHF transmit (likely will not be legal)
- Stick with AIS receive

We have exactly the same issue with SSB/DSC. It is so easy to add a PC/Android app to enable HF DSC receive and transmit on any SSB radio but the certification process kills it. Why? Because if you do not use a separate antenna, you may miss some HF DSC receives. It is not a big deal for a boat 400 nm out there but it is not according to the rules. I wish the GMDSS would issue and official Android/iPhone app for recreational boaters that takes care of HF DSC, for emergency use only, for free . If they are worried about casual use, they can geolock it to work only in open ocean, 20 nm off the shore and this will take care of prank emergencies. Any way, back to sailing...