After reading several blogs and discussions about cruising the inland rivers and on the strong recommendations of several Trawlers and Trawlering List subscribers and friends who have recently completed cruises of the inland rivers we felt that AIS was a good resource for safer navigation in an area frequented by big commercial tows and blind curves! Here is a brief description of our setup along with the hardware and software making it all work together. Sorry, there aren’t any pictures!

We’d already installed a WiFi network onboard connected to an Island Times radio antenna (powered by a Ubiquity bullet), so we were looking for an AIS that could interface with our WiFi network as well as provide NMEA 0183 data to our Garmin GPSMAP 545S and 545 chart plotters. We weren’t quite sure how it would all fit together, but knew is should be possible. We also wanted a unit that could display AIS position data on our laptop navigation software (Fugawi) and that might connect to everything using NMEA 2000 if we decide to upgrade to a more “modern” network interface.

After some searching we settled on the Vesper Marine XB-8000 transponder, a relatively new device (2012) from a company with a good reputation. You can read more about it here: http://www.vespermarine.com/xb. The reviews of the unit on Panbo lead us to believe this was just what we were looking for. For the AIS antenna we chose a Shakespeare Centennial Style 5104 Antenna. The XB-8000 came with a GPS antenna, but we purchased a 12 foot waterproof USB cable in order to reach from the mounted location topside to our lower steering station where we operate our navigation laptop. A short USB cable comes with the unit to use for configuration.

So for parts: Vesper Marine XB-8000 with GPS antenna; the Vesper Marine USB cable; and the Shakespeare 5104 antenna; an antenna mount from West Marine; some PVC from Home Depot for the GPS antenna mount. Except as indicated, everything was purchased from Defender.

Since the XB-8000 is a transponder (sends and receives AIS data) an MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) issued by the FCC is required prior to purchase. We had obtained our MMSI several months earlier, so we had it available to complete the AIS purchase form. We also had to decide in advance on the antenna’s location on the boat, since the form required that info; in retrospect, we could have provided any info regarding boat length, antenna location, etc, since that is readily changeable after purchase but the MMSI is fixed for the unit and cannot be changed.

The installation was fairly straight forward. Install the dedicated AIS antenna and run the cable; install the GPS antenna and run the cable; run the USB cable in an already tight channel between the upper and lower helm locations; install the 12 volt power line from the auxiliary electrical panel. Once the various lines and cables were in place, we connected the AIS unit to everything and powered the circuit. Green LED came on after about 45 seconds and we were in business. Next in the order of things was to get our laptops and chart plotters displaying the incoming AIS data.

At some point I installed the Vesper Marine program on our two laptops. This program, vmAIS, allows the laptop to configure the AIS unit; there is an iPhone/Pad app currently available to do the same thing via WiFi and an Android version will be available later. Since I’m an Android person (phone and Nexus) I have been using a laptop running vmAIS to configure the AIS unit.

I started getting connected using the USB cable since that seemed to be fairly straight forward. vmAIS connected right away once I had identified a comm port. I then configured the AIS unit to be part of our WiFi network (that can only be done using a USB connection) by following the simple directions in the setup manual and on the web site (uncheck one box, select the network you want to join, and provide a fixed DHCP address that your network will recognize). Simple enough.

At that point OpenCPN running on a new HP Ultrabook with Windows 8 was configured to access the AIS data over the WiFi – and the data started pouring in and after a little tweaking is displaying AIS ship position information. Hint: right click on the screen and then click on “AIS target list” for the list of targets.

Fugawi, on the other hand, can “see” only comm ports, not serial ports, so I initially used the USB cable to connect to an older laptop running Fugawi (actually, our “navigation” laptop) and set up Fugawi to see the correct comm port and the data started flowing in, providing our own location data as well as the AIS data from a boat transmitting an AIS signal about 4.5 miles away.

Even though both laptops were receiving data and at least Fugawi was showing the AIS provided ship location data, I wanted to see if there was a way to get the data via the WiFi network to Fugawi. Vesper Marine support provided the answer – a free program which takes a TCP connection and turns it into a Virtual Serial Port – hw_vsp found at http://www.hw-group.com/products/hw_vsp/index_en.html. Once it was configured to “see” the AIS unit, and Fugawi configured to see the virtual comm port, the data started flowing in wirelessly! How cool is that!

The only thing left to do was to connect the NMEA 0183 lines from the AIS unit to the Garmin chart plotter. The GPSMAP 400 and 500 series of plotters have a little quirk (perhaps all Garmin plotters share the quirk) in that the black ground line from the plotter also acts as the negative input/output line for any NMEA connection, so if you’re connecting an AIS that has a NMEA out (+) line that happens to be gray, and a NMEA out (-) line that is yellow, you connect the gray line (+) to the NMEA in line (+) on the Garmin and the yellow line (-) to the Garmin black ground circuit somewhere along the line. Only slightly confusing at first blush. However, once properly connected and the chart plotter configured the AIS ship contact info is displayed on the plotter.

At this point we have one laptop running Fugawi receiving AIS data over WiFi with a USB cable as an optional setup in case anything happens to our WiFi. The data provides both the standard GPS data (course, speed, etc) and the AIS data (ship’s position, speed, COG, CPA, etc). The Garmin chart plotter (only connected one at this point) displays roughly the same info, but (I think) uses it’s internal GPS for our ship’s position and course. Our second laptop running OpenCPN is also receiving data via WiFi and displaying AIS ship data.

To make matter more geeky and interesting, we’re using my Nexus tablet topside to display the navigation laptop screen (running Fugawi). To do this we’re using a Virtual Computer Network, running VCN software on both the navigation laptop and the Nexus (as well as my Android phone, if desired). This gives us both the chart plotter display and the laptop display at the topside steering station or at whatever other location onboard we wish to position the Nexus. We can do the same “magic” with the other laptop – display the navigation laptop screen on the second laptop – all wirelessly, of course! The VCN software on the Nexus and Android phone is AndroidVNC; The program on the navigation laptop is TightVNC; on the other laptop we’re running TightVNC Viewer.

There were a couple of minor issues along the line, but nothing that wasn’t quickly resolved by Vesper Marine’s support staff. Those issues were basically attributable to “operator error.”