SeaLinks AIS listener, & more
The horrid run of foul weather has finally broken here, and I’m happily on Cape Cod for a few days of “researching” a cruising story…so posting may be irregular this week. I did have a couple of very illuminating conversations about AIS listeners last Friday that I want to start sharing. It seems that the technology is moving even faster than we realized; two reliable sources predict that most every brand of plotter will read AIS target messages by next February’s Miami Boat Show! I also heard an interesting report on receiver quality. One of my sources says he tested a SeaLinks RadarPlus dual channel listener against a low cost Chinese-built model, and—given the same antenna and circumstances—the RadarPlus “saw” twice as many targets at almost twice the range. I look forward to my own testing, and yours, but right now I have to go boating.
Really interesting. I wonder if the AIS listeners on new plotters will suffer the same lack of reciever consistency that can be seen with the Sealinks vs. cheaper Chinese alternative.