Hey, Dave. I think we might have set a new record for AIS. Just last year, all we could get was about 20 miles, but just yesterday when abeam of Cape Charles I saw a ship off the Delaware Bay entrance - 76 miles! Then this morning a bit further north, Penny saw one at an even 100 miles! Incredible! I think it must be new gear on the ships as we haven't changed anything on the boat. Best, John "Seahorse" off Little Egg and looking forward to dawn in the Big Apple! PS we could use your ART tonight! G'day all, just installed the newly arrived CB200 AIS transponder. Arrived at 2 PM and was up and transmitting at 3 PM. Not a bad "out of box experience" for a change. Its sensitivity is at least as good as the SR161/2 units as I've logged one ship at 47.42 nm already which is the best that I'd ever gotten on the SR161/2. We are using the same antenna and cables and connectors just so we all know that our installation is clean ;-) Confirmed our signal with several nearby ships already. First time any of them have received a class B AIS signal! We need to work on the way it can transmit distress signals i.e. Mayday with your name, call sign and position. Seems there is a lot more hidden in the lousy manual about what it actually might be able to do both as a nav tool and also as a safety device. We have also seen a few more of the AIS signals transmitted from land locations. We'll see if there are even more on our trip back down to Venezuela as they are helpful "beacons" with a high degree of accuracy as to their location. It is interesting as once set up it just sits here xmitting our information for others to use or not as they see fit. No user interaction (or distraction) is required. I expect you'll be able to get them with FCC approval sooooooooon. This one is EC/EU stamped and was under $1200 landed with freight and duty with an active GPS antenna. As always YMMV........ Cheers Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58 Caribbean Cruise '07 ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

John, I forgot, what AIS setup did you get? Ron

That's remarkable range... I have a FA-150 Furuno unit and can routinely see ships in the 40-50 mile range, occasionally 60 miles. It was noted by my electronics installer that some installers use a shorter antenna for AIS to limit ranges to closer to 20 miles, otherwise there is a fear that the system will saturate in busy areas. The shorter antenna's are recommended for exactly this purpose. In contrast, my boat has extremely long whip antennas on both VHF and AIS, and I was told that is the primary reason for my consistently longer range. Even when operating through the LA and SF areas, not mention Puget Sound, I'll have no more than 20 or so targets, and that's manageable. John Marshall N5520-Serendipity On May 31, 2007, at 5:35 PM, Truelove39@aol.com wrote: > Hey, Dave. > > > I think we might have set a new record for AIS. Just last year, > all we could > get was about 20 miles, but just yesterday when abeam of Cape > Charles I saw > a ship off the Delaware Bay entrance - 76 miles! > > Then this morning a bit further north, Penny saw one at an even > 100 miles! > Incredible! I think it must be new gear on the ships as we haven't > changed > anything on the boat. > > Best, > > John > "Seahorse" > off Little Egg and looking forward to dawn in the Big Apple! > > PS we could use your ART tonight! > > G'day all, just installed the newly arrived CB200 AIS transponder. > Arrived > at 2 PM and was up and transmitting at 3 PM. Not a bad "out of box > experience" for a change. > > Its sensitivity is at least as good as the SR161/2 units as I've > logged one > ship at 47.42 nm already which is the best that I'd ever gotten on > the > SR161/2. We are using the same antenna and cables and connectors > just so we > all know that our installation is clean ;-) > > Confirmed our signal with several nearby ships already. First time > any of > them have received a class B AIS signal! > > We need to work on the way it can transmit distress signals i.e. > Mayday with > your name, call sign and position. Seems there is a lot more > hidden in the > lousy manual about what it actually might be able to do both as a > nav tool > and also as a safety device. > > We have also seen a few more of the AIS signals transmitted from land > locations. We'll see if there are even more on our trip back down to > Venezuela as they are helpful "beacons" with a high degree of > accuracy as to > their location. > > It is interesting as once set up it just sits here xmitting our > information > for others to use or not as they see fit. No user interaction (or > distraction) is required. > > I expect you'll be able to get them with FCC approval sooooooooon. > This one > is EC/EU stamped and was under $1200 landed with freight and duty > with an > active GPS antenna. > > As always YMMV........ > > Cheers > > Dave & Nancy > Swan Song > Roughwater 58 > Caribbean Cruise '07 > > > > > > > > ************************************** See what's free at http:// > www.aol.com. > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/passagemaking-under-power > > To unsubscribe send email to > passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com with the word > UNSUBSCRIBE and nothing else in the subject or body of the message. > > Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World > Productions, formerly known as Trawler World Productions.