AIS and OpenCPN Uses

[monte]

Well I find AIS a valuable tool for navigation and the OpenCPN handling of the data excellent. We have a raymarine AIS650 transponder which displays information at the plotter and also connects to the laptop via USB at the nav station. The CPA details on OpenCPN are far superior, showing much clearer passing situations than on the plotter, so if its a close call we step inside to check on OpenCPN.
Another feature which I find excellent is being able to dislpay target tracks and setting the time for the tracks to display. We have ours set to 600 minutes, which gives us a clear indication of what other yachts are doing and have done, seeing their tack angles up channels and speeds gives us great data on comparing different yachts performance as well.
Currently we are sitting in Dominica waiting to cross to Martinique. The wind is in the South and quite squally so were watching live satelite feeds as the cloud passes over NASA/MSFC Interactive GOES Data Selector to time our departure, as well as whats going on with yachts offshore we can see on OpenCPN.
As you can see the yacht selected is making 5.8K in about the right direction, hard on the wind. The other is motoring at 4K on the rhumb line. We will likely leave in 30 mins and may have to tack to Martinique. I just wanted to share some other uses for AIS and OpenCPN that we find pretty valuable!

[monte]

well looks like good clean air in the passage and a nice lift...time to go!

[a64pilot]

You "techies" never cease to amaze me, I was proud just to get the AIS targets to display on my Open CPN

[monte]

Haha well, we had a nice sail just thought id share

[Gyro]

After several days finaly found a solution to connect rtl sdr stick (Nooelec Mini2) with OpenCpn.Something was wrong with SDRSharp instalation so I found alternative with CubicSDR CubicSDR | Cross-Platform and Open-Source Software Defined Radio Application
Very simple piece of free sotware connected with OpenCpn trough Aismon via VBCABLEDriver and result is amazing.I receive targets more than 3 km away from closed space