AIS Systems

[Gwilliamson]

If you guys arent looking to soend the coin on the transponder and just wanna see what vessels are doing in your area than look no further than the marine traffic app. I use it in my room on the boat at work to monitor what the traffic is doing. Pretty neat, if you do the membership you can get the details and all that jazz.

[Gwilliamson]

They also have an app that is a stand alone nav app called OnCourse from the AppStore. Ive been playing with it at work, and uses google maps. Ill make a further review on it when i use it on my smaller boat.

[Helmar]

They also have an app that is a stand alone nav app called OnCourse from the AppStore. Ive been playing with it at work, and uses google maps. Ill make a further review on it when i use it on my smaller boat.

I have one of those apps as well. Mine only shows USA and its www.navionics.com I have had it now for must have been 6 years or so, and I think paid a one time fee for 9 bucks. Now I see it has all Kinds of options, charts and stuff available.

I will have to go look at the one you got and check it out too

[Gwilliamson]

I use marinetraffic.com. I haven't used vesselfinder.com, so I don't know how they compare. You can filter the type of vessel you want to see and even animate a vessel's track over the previous 24 hours. You do need a data connection. The attached image is a screen shot from my phone. I think I paid less than $5 for it. It doesn't seem to show Navy ships and most Coast Guard, so it might not be useful if you're a rum runner. The image does show the Henry Blake, but it's a larger boat with a crane, maybe a buoy tender. Why would the Coast Guard name a boat after a fictional army colonel?

It will show USCG vessels if they are on a job IE; bouy tender. or in port layed up but other then that they stay low key.

[Gwilliamson]

I have one of those apps as well. Mine only shows USA and its www.navionics.com I have had it now for must have been 6 years or so, and I think paid a one time fee for 9 bucks. Now I see it has all Kinds of options, charts and stuff available.

I will have to go look at the one you got and check it out too

so i have that but i like the oncourse better because the ais is integrated.

but the other day i was researching standalone nav via phone or tablet (with cellular offline) and they are getting close.

i'm thinking of getting this device that runs through the app sonar phone through the app store. it is basically a transducer that pairs to a device via wifi and will split screen with navionics. the transducer kits run 200-500 bucks.

i like the idea of this for the sake of if i decide to leave my boat in a harbor long term i can take my tablet with me and won't be ripped off, and it also keeps me from being obsolete.