Adding AIS to a R25/OB ?

[Submariner]

The data absolutely gets to the Garmin, no problems, seamless integration. Even selective calling (click a vessel, call it) works with the Garmin VHF (not sure about the standard horizon). I love it.

I do not believe that Standard Horizon VHF radio supports the feature to place a VHF call from the chart plotter using AIS.

I've got the Standard Horizon GX1850 VHF radio and haven't been able to make it work. The Garmin manual for the chartplotter specifies that for this feature to work a Garmin VHF radio is needed.

I know Salty Bliss in their RT-31 is able to place a VHF call (via DSC) from an AIS target on their chartplotter to their Garmin VHF. I want this feature and ultimately would have to upgrade my VHF radio to Garmin to get it.

 

[Brian 27 OB]

The data absolutely gets to the Garmin, no problems, seamless integration. Even selective calling (click a vessel, call it) works with the Garmin VHF (not sure about the standard horizon). I love it.

I do not believe that Standard Horizon VHF radio supports the feature to place a VHF call from the chart plotter using AIS.

This is correct for me as well. I have the Garmin AIS 800. My chartplotter looks like it wants to send the DSC info to the VHF but the handoff doesn't work. I have been meaning to replace the Standard Horizons but always forget to measure the opening to see what Garmin product will fit. The other reason I want to replace the SH VHF is because it tends to lose GPS coordinates frequently and then beeps every 10 minutes to remind me of that.

 

[Submariner]

The other reason I want to replace the SH VHF is because it tends to lose GPS coordinates frequently and then beeps every 10 minutes to remind me of that.

I solved that problem of the VHF radio losing it's GPS coordinates from the Garmin chart plotter.

I installed a Garmin 24XD GPS receiver for Nema2k.
Basically, a GPS receiver (not just an antenna, but an actual GPS receiver) that plugs in via Nema2k. The 24XD also has a magnetic heading sensor, so even with autopilot turned off and the boat not moving, the chart plotter still knows which direction the boat is pointing.

Being that it connects directly to Nema2k, I configured the Standard Horizon VHF radio such that it always picks up it's GPS positioning data off the GPS 24XD, which is always on, always available. This also improved my GPS accuracy, dropping my GPS positioning error to 3 feet.

The 24XD provides accurate GPS positioning data now for the VHF radio, the Garmin chart plotter and the Lenco auto glide.

https://www.letsgochannelsurfing.com/gps-external-antenna

 

[Brian 27 OB]

I added the GA 38 GPS to the Garmin AIS 800 so I had I constant GPS input and selected as the source on the Standard Horizon VHF. It worked fine for a few weeks and then gave me trouble. Perhaps I’m making a mistake somewhere. I would add the new 24XD but I’m tired of running wires at this point.

 

[Submariner]

I added the GA 38 GPS to the Garmin AIS 800 so I had I constant GPS input and selected as the source on the Standard Horizon VHF. It worked fine for a few weeks and then gave me trouble. Perhaps I’m making a mistake somewhere. I would add the new 24XD but I’m tired of running wires at this point.

When I added the Vesper AIS, it too, provided GPS to the VHF radio. However, for whatever reason, the VHF radio would pick up the chart plotter GPS first always. I'm guessing it was a better signal strength. Then when I turned off the chart plotter, the VHF radio would beep about 10 minutes (lost GPS signal), I'd acknowledge it, then it would shift and pick up GPS off the Vesper. This usually happened at anchor, which is where I'd run the VHF radio for hours on channel 16 with the chart plotter off.

I've had better luck with the 24XD so far, but I've also only had it installed now since October.

 

[j&lgray]

I have some experience with AIS with different solutions:

1. Boat with the Garmin suite. All I wanted was to receive AIS to "see the big boys" so I could get out of their way. I switched out the Garmin VHF for an ICOM that received AIS signals and connected it to the NEMA backbone. Voila! AIS signals were displayed on the Garmin chart plotter.

2. All new Garmin equipment on a new boat. Added the Garmin 800 box to the setup, programmed it, and now that boat sends and receives AIS signals.

3. 2004 boat with same year electronics. Wanted to send and receive AIS with switching out the nice functioning chart plotter and radio. Fix: Installed Vesper, used the VHF radio antenna with a splitter and displayed everything on an iPad running Aquamarine.

There are different paths to the same mountain top.

 

[GypsyMoth]

I had Ranger add the Vesper XB-8000 AIS transmit to the standard AIS receive on my 2021 R27OB. I will say that when Ranger Tugs shrink wrapped the boat for shipping down to the SF Bay the shrink wrap came down on the Vesper GPS antenna and broke the mount- so be careful if wrapping your R27 with the AIS GPS antenna! Ranger was great and had a local boat yard replace the antenna.

 

[baz]

Can you explain "Channel Surfing" for me. Thanks for the photos. 🙂

What had to be done to have the AIS targets display on the Garmin chart plotter ?

The components are expensive...

Vesper Marine WatchMate XB-8000 smartAIS Transponder with WiFi and NMEA 2000 Gateway
Description
The XB-8000 AIS Transponder has WiFi, NMEA 2000® & 0183, USB and GPS receiver all built right in and includes a powerful external GPS antenna with 10m (33') cable.
$740 at Defender

Vesper Marine VHF / AIS Antenna Splitter
Applications: All AIS Transponders and Receivers
Function: Enables AIS to Share a Single Antenna with VHF and AM/FM Radio
Power: 12 - 24 Volts DC, Includes Built-in Low Noise Amplifier
$229 at Defender

Total cost would around $1,000 I guess.

A complete kit here... Defender $949
https://www.defender.com/product3.jsp?p ... id=4863144

I'm not terribly good at boat electronics and would want anything I would do to be done correctly and according to code etc.

I've also done a fair amount of mods to my RT models over the years and quite honestly today I'm apt to think carefully before taking on a project that requires me to get into small dark unlit places, and feeling my way along wire harnesses and hidden places with wanting cameras in my finger tips. Have done too much of this and my body/limbs do not take kindly to this sort of project work any longer. I don't mind crawling into the cave feet first, but no way would I do it these days, head first. :roll:

Given this I have been wondering what a good qualified boat electrician would charge for installing AIS 800 on my R25/OB. I've called around to marine businesses I contracted for work in the past, and came across DMA Marine in Everett. It's a fairly small company having 4 employees, and they came highly recommended to me by La Conner Maritime who has done work for me in the past. DMA Marine's primary expertise is in boat electronics, so pleased me.

They would come to the boat to do the installation for me. I asked if I could save money by buying all the equipment myself and for them to install it. David(the owner) said it was best for him to purchase the hardware so that warranty can be taken care of along with his own workmanship warranty. Approximate cost estimate for doing the work was estimated at around $1,500.

I might ask Dave to install the VESPER CORTEX M1 AIS TRANSPONDER & VESSEL MONITORING SYSTEM for me, without the handset.

Dave felt comfortable doing this on the R25/OB as he's familiar with RT models and said they lay the wiring and electronics out nicely and make things resonably accessible. He saw no issue doing the work for me, and indicated it maybe would take half a day.

I don't suppose there are others here that have had DMA Marine do work for them on the RT/CW boats? If so, what's your opinion of DMA Marine? Thanks. 🙂

 

[FlyMeAway]

That's not a bad price. Vesper Cortex labor only was $1100 where I had it done in Seattle, and I got similar quotes of ~$1000 in labor for installing an AIS. Do I understand that your quote is $1500 all-in including the parts/hardware?

 

[baz]

That's not a bad price. Vesper Cortex labor only was $1100 where I had it done in Seattle, and I got similar quotes of ~$1000 in labor for installing an AIS. Do I understand that your quote is $1500 all-in including the parts/hardware?

I believe the $1500->$1600 + tax includes parts & labour. However, will check for sure and post back.

 

[marksandyham]

If it's $1500 plus tax for parts and labor I would write the check, grab a couple of my favorite adult beverages and watch them work.

 

[baz]

That's not a bad price. Vesper Cortex labor only was $1100 where I had it done in Seattle, and I got similar quotes of ~$1000 in labor for installing an AIS. Do I understand that your quote is $1500 all-in including the parts/hardware?

I believe the $1500->$1600 + tax includes parts & labour. However, will check for sure and post back.

I checked, and the $1,500->$1,600 does include parts & labor. WA Sales Tax would be extra.

When I purchased my 2019 R29 CB from RT, I was charged $800 for AIS 800. So I presume installation was less involved when the boat is being assembled at the factory vs. it being done aftermarket.

 

[FlyMeAway]

When I purchased my 2019 R29 CB from RT, I was charged $800 for AIS 800. So I presume installation was less involved when the boat is being assembled at the factory vs. it being done aftermarket.

Sort of but also not entirely (for Garmin hardware). The AIS 800 is almost a drop-in replacement for the existing AIS capabilities of the Garmin AIS/VHF 300 that I think came with your 29 (and my 31). The only difference for install is that the Garmin GPS antenna could get routed to the the AIS instead of the plotter, but it doesn't have to be. Garmin AIS 800 is an ~$1000 part (you can find it discounted, but that's retail), and the VHF 300 is $200 cheaper than the VHF/AIS 300. Fluid Motion basically charged you the difference in parts and rolled the labor into construction, but that was also possible because it was an all-Garmin setup and the incremental wiring is negligible on construction. It would probably not have been as true had it been a non-Garmin AIS.

Installing a non-Garmin AIS (like Vesper) and doing it well requires a new run of GPS cable (you can rely on the internal GPS, but I wouldn't) which was the bulk of the install. If I had been installing the Garmin rather than the Vesper, install would have been quite a bit cheaper.

That said, $1500 all-in (so ~$500 for labor, since the parts are around $1000, for AIS and splitter) is a bargain. I spoke to four different well-regarded shops/yards around Seattle and they all quoted $1k to install a third party (non-Garmin) AIS on our boats.

 

[baz]

FlyMeAway: Are you saying you found a shop that would charge $1,000 to install the AIS and that this cost included labor ?

 

[FlyMeAway]

FlyMeAway: Are you saying you found a shop that would charge $1,000 to install the AIS and that this cost included labor ?

No, apologies if I wasn't clear -- the $1000 is just labor for adding a non-Garmin AIS to our boats. Basically every quote I got (CSR, MonkeyFist, Milltech, and a few others I can't remember) had labor in the $900-1100 range. We ended up at the top end of the range because the AIS we chose (Vesper Cortex) couldn't get GPS signal from its internal antenna where we wanted it mounted (which, to be fair, was fairly low down in the boat) so they had to run the external antenna up to the flybridge, and they also set up the NMEA2K wifi gateway as part of the install.

 

[baz]

FlyMeAway: Thanks for the clarification. I will likely go for the Garmin AIS box as this worked OK on my R27/OB and the R29 hooking into the existing RT factory setup. Will likely have to add an extension to the NMEA 2K for the AIS box.

If I recall correctly, adding the Garmin AIS 800 (approx $900-1000) simply requires: power connection, a connection to the NMEA 2K, adding GPS receiver, possibly using/connecting the existing VHF antenna, and then program the Garmin AIS 800 box with MMSI and boat's name.

- Easy-to-use, reliable communication transmits your vessel information to other AIS receivers in your area while receiving AIS target data.
- 5 watts of transmit power with Class B/SO provides faster positioning reporting than ever before.
- Built-in GPS with connector for optional external antenna.
- NMEA 2000® connectivity for easy integration with compatible chartplotters and multifunction displays.
- Internal VHF antenna splitter allows VHF and AIS to share a single antenna.[/list]

 

[FlyMeAway]

If I recall correctly, adding the Garmin AIS 800 (approx $900-1000) simply requires a connection to the NMEA 2K, adding GPS receiver, using/connecting the existing VHF antenna, and then program the Garmin AIS 800 box with MMSI and boat's name.

You might not have to add the external GPS antenna; the AIS box has one built-in so it just needs to be able to get a signal (which surprisingly can be found in a lot of places).

Also, I don't know if the plotter on the R25/OB uses an external GPS antenna, uses an NMEA2K GPS receiver/antenna, or has one built in (with nothing external). If it uses an external antenna (but not an external NMEA2K receiver), and it turns out you need an external GPS antenna for the AIS, you might be able to repurpose/rewire that antenna to the AIS because they are both Garmin. Then the AIS passes GPS data back to the plotter.

 

[baz]

FlyMeAway: Thanks for the update and extra info. The bottom line of course is that after all is done, does the AIS 800 work satisfactorily. 😉 I had issues at first with the AIS 800 installation on my R27/OB and RT had to come to boat to fix things to make it work. I think it may have been software and/or antenna connection, and repositioning the GPS receiver inside the boat. The RT fella that came to the boat snugged down into the cave head first and then doubled up to get his hands on the AIS 800 box and its connections. This is something my body refuses to do these days. He spent a good hour in that cave's position. If it were me down there, a block and tackle would have to have been employed to extract me, along with a possible call to 911. 😉

 

[Mike and Sarah]

Barry. Here is a thought. Factory installed radar is $2280. Radar will give you better info than just AIS. Then get an ais app (free) for your phone and use that for ais. A week ago we made a trip around Fidelgo island and had bad fog. Radar was a must. We never would have left the dock if we didn’t have radar. Mike

 

[baz]

Barry. Here is a thought. Factory installed radar is $2280. Radar will give you better info than just AIS. Then get an ais app (free) for your phone and use that for ais. A week ago we made a trip around Fidelgo island and had bad fog. Radar was a must. We never would have left the dock if we didn’t have radar. Mike

Hmmmm, I do have radar for my R25/OB. I will investigate the AIS phone app. Thanks.... still have time to make the various decisions here, and this is why I'm asking the questions. 🙂