AIS courtesy

[rwidman]

It wasn't that long ago that the current US administration was proposing that all boats should be required to have an AIS transmitter. Apparently, even Uncle Bubba's duck hunting boat.

We can be glad that common sense prevailed and that proposal was shut down.

I think an AIS receiver would be great for any boat operating in an area where commercial ships are operating. Transmitting, not so much.

I do see the advantage of the other guy having a transmitter so I could identify the guy who waked me or failed to give way when he was supposed to.

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by rwidman

It wasn't that long ago that the current US administration was proposing that all boats should be required to have an AIS transmitter. Apparently, even Uncle Bubba's duck hunting boat.

I hadn't heard that proposal. Do you have any links or sources that detail how the "current administration" was in anyway trying to make AIS mandatory? I googled it and came up with nothing.

[Robin3]

Originally Posted by Palarran

I hadn't heard that proposal. Do you have any links or sources that detail how the "current administration" was in anyway trying to make AIS mandatory? I googled it and came up with nothing.

I remember the notion but do not have a link, I think it was from Homeland Insecurity. One reason to have an AIS 'transmit off' switch like we installed with our Garmin, a simple switch installed across two data leads as per Garmin's installation instructions.

In our case with a Garmin AIS600 the transmit function is automatically turned on as soon as the NMEA2000 network is powered live, ie whenever there is power to the network backbone NMEA2000 (which includes our windspeed/direction/boatspeed, autopilot and depth displays. Turning off the AIS on the MFD or even turning the display off totally has no effect on the signal transmitting which carries on regardless. This may be why some, even many do not even realise they are still transmitting when back in their marina slip. Plus there is a phone App that automatically calls Marine traffic via email every 2 minutes or so if activated as I discovered when waiting for a meal and downloaded it, later to see my 'boat' on Marine Traffic online had been travelling though town at 40mph as we drove home. It also explains why I have sometimes seen on marine traffic a 'target' travelling at 70+ mph northbound on I-95, likes somebody left their tx turned on in their trailered boat and going home to the frozen north.

My garmin has a physical TX on/off switch mounted at the nav table so if in pirate waters we can go silent if needs be or if leaving our instruments on whilst at anchor we will not 'bug' others

[Foolish]

I'm laughing at all the posts telling you to turn the AIS alarm off. If you are up on deck, why don't you just turn the whole friggin AIS off? When did sailing become staring at a computer screen? Unless you are a commercial ship, just turn it off!