Recommendations on off the shelf nav/wind/AIS transponder?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by MJH

I find your post confusing. With your aversion to spending money, only 200 miles to go, and motoring all you need is a handheld GPS. It will give you everything you need to know. Just be sure to pick good weather windows and keep your eyes open.

FWIW I have completed a roundtrip to Ketchikan, Alaska (over 700 NM) and Vancouver Island circumnavigation with only an old Garmin 45 and paper charts of course.

Good Luck.

You’re not the only one. A couple of other people had the same confusion. Let me clear it up.

I have a 200 mile trip to go to the Rigger. So I need to get everything ready to go up when the mast goes up at the end of the 200 mile trip. So I need to buy it now.

From there, I’m going to spend the winter sailing. Seeing if I still like the lifestyle or not. It’s been a while.

I will be single handing the boat entirely this winter. So, I want the right stuff. I need to see the wind speed and sail by the numbers and reef properly. And I also would like to have some AIS capability as much as I hate it, so that those people who just sit there looking down at their screens can see me.

[FerrariSailing]

Kia Ora Chotu. I put a stand alone B&G Bluetooth wind gear set up on my Schionning 46 cat last May and it is brilliant! I only use apparent speed and direction, no stupid paddle wheel to have to continually mess with. For speed I use my GArmin plotter which is linked to my Garmin AIS & VHF via an aerial splitter. Works great, all systems individually switched from main panel. I would have loved radar as well.

[gregabbiss]

OP, the question of what Nav/Wind etc is a good question but you are probbaly looking at it from the wrong end of the equation.

When someone asks me what computer to buy the question is always what do you want to do with it then work back from there. When we talk about boat electronics the question is always how do you want to work with it, tablet, proprietary gear that is guaranteed to work together (well sort of) etc.

I think the first question is what NMEA network am I going to build on the boat (most stuff still is linked to NMEA so that is still almost a necessity if you want to stay mainstream).

Next is what am I going to do about a faster speed network for the boat (Ethernet/Wifi)so I can use tablets, phones and low cost devices, even setup Raspberry Pi devices as I have done, and how am I going to join the two together.

Once you have those answered you can then pick and choose mostly, as most instruments, other than Radar, forward looking scanners etc. are simple NMEA devices and will work with anything else.

The Radar BTW, can be got around on the network as well mostly, we have Radar working on OpenCPN for instance on every device.

You'll find lots of articles on how to do all this and the right questions to ask, most importantly, on the ITSailor site.

Hope it all helps.

[Chotu]

As a former tech guy and scientist, I like this approach. Makes a lot of sense.

In the first post of the thread I outlined what I wanted to do. But I didn’t outline how I wanted to do all of that so you’re right.

First part. The boat will certainly have a Wi-Fi network. That will be fed by a fairly low bandwidth cellular plan most likely. Data caps. But that’s sort of irrelevant. Because we are only talking about the local area network. Not the uplink to the Internet.

I would strongly prefer to have dedicated navigation devices. Tablets. One, maybe two just because a back up is good. These devices will not be used to connect to anything on the public Internet. They will be dedicated. Navigation systems, to me, are too critical to connect to the internet with. I would like to just stick the tablet at the NAV station/helm area when I am using it there. Or carry it over to the coffee table when I am using it from the couch (settee) underway.

Preferably, I’d like to see everything on that tablet and run iNavX on there. I know that’s not open source, but it works really well and it has the spirit of open source even though he’s selling it.

I don’t prefer one technology. I prefer open source. But everything using a common data structure (NMEA?) so that you can send the data all around the network and each device participates properly.

So for NMEA, the most easy one that everyone accepts. No specialized NMEA protocols. Just the most common one. Is that 2000?

Joining together the BAN (boat area network? Lol) and LAN should be accomplished through NMEA over WiFi from the quick glance I’ve had at the options. There are converters that can carry the NMEA over TCP/IP (then ultimately over WiFi). Yes?

It also makes absolutely no sense to me to wire up a network. I would prefer all NMEA data to be carried over Wi-Fi on the local network.

This improves your chances of having a reliable system after a lightning strike. Random wires strewn about don’t always do so well.

So from those answers, what do you think? Also I do have a silly question to add onto this wireless stuff. If I have a wireless anemometer, how the heck does that thing maintain power? Batteries? I don’t want to be changing batteries at the top of the mast. How does that work?

Originally Posted by gregabbiss

OP, the question of what Nav/Wind etc is a good question but you are probbaly looking at it from the wrong end of the equation.

When someone asks me what computer to buy the question is always what do you want to do with it then work back from there. When we talk about boat electronics the question is always how do you want to work with it, tablet, proprietary gear that is guaranteed to work together (well sort of) etc.

I think the first question is what NMEA network am I going to build on the boat (most stuff still is linked to NMEA so that is still almost a necessity if you want to stay mainstream).

Next is what am I going to do about a faster speed network for the boat (Ethernet/Wifi)so I can use tablets, phones and low cost devices, even setup Raspberry Pi devices as I have done, and how am I going to join the two together.

Once you have those answered you can then pick and choose mostly, as most instruments, other than Radar, forward looking scanners etc. are simple NMEA devices and will work with anything else.

The Radar BTW, can be got around on the network as well mostly, we have Radar working on OpenCPN for instance on every device.

You'll find lots of articles on how to do all this and the right questions to ask, most importantly, on the ITSailor site.

Hope it all helps.

[rslifkin]

NMEA2000 will be easiest to deal with for physical interconnects between devices. 0183 is a pain. When you multiplex NMEA onto your wifi network, it's usually converted to 0183 in the process (the hardware doing the multiplexing takes care of the conversions). 0183 uses plain text sentences, so they're easier for software to work with across whatever network you want.

[goboatingnow]

I think we are seeing two trends

One is to get all relevant data onto the nmea2000 as this the only real standard for data exchange

Then we can gateway from wifi into AB’s out of can bus using a gateway. Now we have two way tcp communications so we can connect cellular routers.l, Tablets etc etc. what I’m also now seeing is wifi sensors like wifi tank monitoring , battery monitoring etc. therefore skipping the data wiring prevelent in nmea 2000

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I think we are seeing two trends

One is to get all relevant data onto the nmea2000 as this the only real standard for data exchange

Then we can gateway from wifi into AB’s out of can bus using a gateway. Now we have two way tcp communications so we can connect cellular routers.l, Tablets etc etc. what I’m also now seeing is wifi sensors like wifi tank monitoring , battery monitoring etc. therefore skipping the data wiring prevelent in nmea 2000

For me, this stuff makes a lot of sense. If you’re going to use electronics, there’s no reason to run wires everywhere.

Give me a stick with some marks on it to put down in the tank, give me a sight glass, or just give me a wireless tank monitor. Ha ha.

[Chotu]

By the way, this is the crazy VHF that I have.

https://www.westmarine.com/standard-...-15088222.html

Apparently it has a GPS, AIS receiver, all kinds of stuff.


Integrated 66-channel WAAS GPS receiver
Integrated dual-channel AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver
AIS / AIS SART target display: MMSI, Call Sign, Ship Name, BRG, DST, SOG and COG
4800 or 38400 NMEA 0183 baud rate selection, for plotters with only one NMEA port
True and Magnetic bearing selection on AIS display
Contact Class A or B AIS Ship with DSC
Programmable CPA or TCPA collision avoidance alarms
Meets ITU-R M493-13 Class D DSC (Digital Selective Calling)
Front panel is submersible to IPX7 standards (3.3 feet or 1 meter for 30 minutes)
80dB Commercial grade receiver tunes out noise from adjacent channels
DSC position request and report functions
30 Watt PA/Loud Hailer with preprogrammed fog signals and listen back
ClearVoice noise canceling speaker microphone with channel selection and 16/9 key
GPS Compass, Waypoint and GPS status pages

[rslifkin]

Built in GPS on a VHF is very useful. It means all the DSC stuff will work without needing a feed from an external GPS (which means simpler wiring and that it'll also work without other electronics powered up). I'd just ignore the AIS in the VHF once you get the rest of the setup together.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Built in GPS on a VHF is very useful. It means all the DSC stuff will work without needing a feed from an external GPS (which means simpler wiring and that it'll also work without other electronics powered up). I'd just ignore the AIS in the VHF once you get the rest of the setup together.

Sounds good. I don’t even know what DSC is yet. Ha ha ha. Some bedtime reading tonight.

I know what it stands for but I don’t know how it works.

I figure I can probably play around with it a little bit on my 200 mile trip. It’ll give me something to do.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Sounds good. I don’t even know what DSC is yet. Ha ha ha. Some bedtime reading tonight.

I know what it stands for but I don’t know how it works.

I figure I can probably play around with it a little bit on my 200 mile trip. It’ll give me something to do.

Honestly, the most important function of it is the little red "things have gone horribly wrong, send help" button. The other functions are sometimes handy, but much less important in my mind.

[Noahr]

With the low price of AIS gear these days and the fact that your boat will probably make for a very radar profile, I would definitely recommend you go with an AIS transceiver. An antenna splitter should work fine too and keeps the number of antennas to a minimum. Less windage😎

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Sounds good. I don’t even know what DSC is yet. Ha ha ha. Some bedtime reading tonight.



I know what it stands for but I don’t know how it works.



I figure I can probably play around with it a little bit on my 200 mile trip. It’ll give me something to do.

It’s just a “ dial pad “ for vhf like a telephone !! The receiver will then ring a bell like a phone

Very useful to waking up dozing bridge crew. !!

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Noahr

With the low price of AIS gear these days and the fact that your boat will probably make for a very radar profile, I would definitely recommend you go with an AIS transceiver. An antenna splitter should work fine too and keeps the number of antennas to a minimum. Less windage��

Question. Since you have a typo in the above.

are you saying I will not make a very good radar profile?

Why is that? I have a really huge freeboard/windage. my mast is 11 1/2 x 7 1/2 or something like that. pretty thick boom also.

I seem to have a lot more surface area facing things than any other boats around me. Other than power boats. So why wouldn’t I make a good radar profile?

not trying to be antagonistic, I actually don’t understand why I wouldn’t make a good radar profile.

The only direction I don’t look like a huge slab of boat is directly from the bow. I have a really high bridge deck clearance, narrow hulls and aerodynamics and whatever. So the boat sort of disappears when you look at it from the bow.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Question. Since you have a typo in the above.

are you saying I will not make a very good radar profile?

Why is that? I have a really huge freeboard/windage. my mast is 11 1/2 x 7 1/2 or something like that. pretty thick boom also.

I seem to have a lot more surface area facing things than any other boats around me. Other than power boats. So why wouldn’t I make a good radar profile?

not trying to be antagonistic, I actually don’t understand why I wouldn’t make a good radar profile.

The only direction I don’t look like a huge slab of boat is directly from the bow. I have a really high bridge deck clearance, narrow hulls and aerodynamics and whatever. So the boat sort of disappears when you look at it from the bow.

You’d be surprised how bad a grp boat looks to a radar.