Standard Horizon GX2000 vs Icom M330 vs Simrad RS35/B&G V50

[Tenedos]

Sailing more in the Pacific Ocean and gradually upgrading my electronics brought me to the point of upgrading my fixed VHF. I still have a pretty old Raymarine (Raytheon) VHF and it is time to upgrade something to more sophisticated at least with DSC/distress etc.

After looking at this a bit and going through previous discussions, I am debating between three options: Standard Horizon GX2000, Icom M330 and Simrad RS35/B&G V50.

V50 list price is higher but I found a seemingly good deal, so I can get any of these three at a similar price point. So for this discussion, I would like to take the price out of the picture.

Some context: I have a SeatalkNg & Setalk 1 network with a mix of old and new Raymarine electronics: Axiom Chartplotter, Camino 108S AIS transceiver with built-in splitter (fixed VHF will connect to the output of this chart plotter), EV-1 autopilot on SeatalkNg and some older depth and wind instruments on Seatalk 1 connected via E22158. Camino 108S is connected to SeatalkNg with a spur cable but it also has an NMEA 0183 output.

There are two GPS streams to the SeatalkNg bus, one from the chart plotter and the other from the AIS transceiver.

I like the option of AIS based calling on GX2000 and Simrad/B&G. I like the option of NMEA 2000 on Simrad. And M330 feels overall simpler to operate.

I have a single VHF masthead antenna and a splitter integrated to AIS so I am not clear if Simrad will pick up the AIS messages from my existing unit via NMEA 2000 (I posted a question on a separate thread for this).

Which one would you recommend?

[Tenedos]

CaptTom wrote an excellent review for Simrad RS35/B&G V50 on a different thread (quoted below), so that one is out.

Now my choice is between M330 and GX2000. Any recommendations on this? Is the AIS display on GX2000 any useful?

Originally Posted by CaptTom

First, the little PPI (radar-like) display showing AIS targets has not turned out to be anywhere near as useful as I anticipated. I simply never use it. And that was a big reason I chose this unit.

Second, as I said above, it's too stupid to know that I'm not about to collide with myself, so I have to turn off the AIS receiver anyway. Second big reason for buying it.

What's left is an ordinary VHF radio, which would be fine, except...

I use the scanning feature a lot. I find it outrageously difficult to use on the B&G. It's more like a get-out-the-manual, step-by-step configuration effort every time you want to change which channels to scan. And you can only scan 2-3 channels anyway.

Finally, there's a serious bug in mine that causes it to randomly switch to a weather channel every so often. There's a software upgrade to fix it, but you need a B&G display unit to run the update, or de-install the radio and bring it somewhere.

Overall, I can't recommend this radio. If you already had a B&G system, and you didn't use the radio much anyway, it would be fine. But there are so many better units out there, I don't see any value.

[Tenedos]

I decided to go with GX2000 and just installed it today. First impression is very positive. It easily integrated with my AIS transceiver via NME 0183 via just two cables. It receives GPS location and AIS information and the reception is much clearer.