[C320-list] AIS transponder advice?

[Ray Taylor]

Hi Pat,
I doubt if my experience will help, but I 'll speak up 
I purchased a boat early last year with a current VHS radio but no AIS.  I wanted an AIS receiver at minimum but was too frugal to toss out the VHF.  I went back and forth and decided to install a Daisy 2 AIS receiver with a Glomex smart splitter routed to my mast head antenna.   This allowed AIS protection while I came up with a long term solution.   The daisy is routed with 1 wire into a Garmin chart plotter.   The logic and alarms are seamlessly handled  by the Garmin.  After 1 year of service I' m pleased.   $140 total cost and an easy afternoon installation.
 I'll eventually go with a transponder but this has been a good solution.
Good luck with your decision.
FYI, I'm a Catalina 28 owner who lurks on this board because of the good ideas.
Ray

Sent from my iPad
Any way.

hOn Feb 5, 2019, at 8:49 AM, Pat Tormey <ptormey at 4square.net> wrote:

> I’ve got am iCOM M506 VHF with a built in AIS receiver, seamlessly feeding into a Garmin 7607 Chart plotter (with GPS), but this year I’d like to add an AIS Transponder. 
> 
> So far I think I understand that I should buy one with it’s own internal GPS and either use second dedicated antenna or connect the that mast head VHF thru a splitter/sharing gadget.
> 
> So I think that I’d then need to disconnect the M506’s AIS and hook in the “insert new AIR transponder gadget here” AIS. OR maybe I can just ignore the new gadget’s AIS and leave the iCOM alone. 
> 
> Pros are the existing iCOM AIS receiver already works and uses the masthead antenna 
> Cons are MAYBE the transponder will chat with the iCOM and continuously warn me that I’m colliding with myself 😉
> 
> I’m leaning toward the internal GPS transponder with a stand alone antenna.
> 
> Anybody got any experience or advice before I take that plunge?
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> Pat
> 
> Pat Tormey 
> s/v Blue Skies
> #1037