AIS mounted

The AIS has now been mounted. Ole-Jo did a great job on this!

As everyone knows, an functioning AIS transponder needs:

• The AIS unit
• A dedicated GPS for the AIS (since it can only use 4800 baud)
• A dedicated AIS antenna (or splitter, we have a dedicated antenna)

...and if you want to use this information for anything it needs to be connected to the plotter, which often means bridging NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000.

Here is a picture of where the AIS unit is mounted on Silverminken (forgive the quality, it was taken on my cellphone):

This is behind the starboard sofa cushion, and you can barely see the AIS unit to the right on the picture. To the left is the SPX-10 autopilot unit. Also, this is where all the electronics are connected. There are three connection bridges here. The bottom one bridges the main backbones, the middle and top are bridges for the two different backbones. Neatly done and well labelled.

Here is a picture of the dedicated GPS (the small black "dot" next to the stanchion) and the dedicated AIS antenna whip required for the AIS. Quite subtle, don't you think?