willsailforfood
Anarchist
So, now that Garmin owns Vesper (oh how I wish I had known this before buying the XB-6000), what is my best Class B (stand alone) option for AIS?
Background: We had an older ComNav unit that was starting to act a bit flakey, and I wanted to get all the instruments onto NMEA2000, and the ComNav was the last thing on the network requiring 0183. So I decided that I would simply replace the ComNav, and pick up the Vesper XB-6000.
It installed easily enough, and once I got drivers for the USB-serial I was able to connect to the device, and configure my callsign, MMSI, etc.
With the device up and running it seemed to take a LONG time (20-230 minutes) to begin transmitting. After a lot of debugging I found that if the device had not begun transmitting after 15-20 minutes, connecting to it via usb-serial somehow kicked it in the head and within a few seconds it would begin transmitting.
Hmm.. wtf?
So I call up Garmin, sit on hold for 40 minutes, and get connected to someone who essentially does what I have been doing for the past 2 days, and reads the manual to me.
I ask if there is someone with actual expertise in this product that can assist (given that the manual is shite), and they basically said they have no idea what Garmin's plans for the product are and explain that support is limited to the product information they have, which is basically the manual.
Well, I know how to read, and I can see where the call is going, so I ask, 'Am I supposed to plug in a laptop each time I power on the AIS? What are our next steps here?' The response is that there must be something wrong with the unit so they want to exchange it. Hmm.. do I want this saga to continue?
Do I want to put up with Garmin? Answer is no, not any more than I want to drive a nail through my big toe. So.. who should I be looking at for top tier Class B AIS now that Vesper is essentially out of the market?
Background: We had an older ComNav unit that was starting to act a bit flakey, and I wanted to get all the instruments onto NMEA2000, and the ComNav was the last thing on the network requiring 0183. So I decided that I would simply replace the ComNav, and pick up the Vesper XB-6000.
It installed easily enough, and once I got drivers for the USB-serial I was able to connect to the device, and configure my callsign, MMSI, etc.
With the device up and running it seemed to take a LONG time (20-230 minutes) to begin transmitting. After a lot of debugging I found that if the device had not begun transmitting after 15-20 minutes, connecting to it via usb-serial somehow kicked it in the head and within a few seconds it would begin transmitting.
Hmm.. wtf?
So I call up Garmin, sit on hold for 40 minutes, and get connected to someone who essentially does what I have been doing for the past 2 days, and reads the manual to me.
I ask if there is someone with actual expertise in this product that can assist (given that the manual is shite), and they basically said they have no idea what Garmin's plans for the product are and explain that support is limited to the product information they have, which is basically the manual.
Well, I know how to read, and I can see where the call is going, so I ask, 'Am I supposed to plug in a laptop each time I power on the AIS? What are our next steps here?' The response is that there must be something wrong with the unit so they want to exchange it. Hmm.. do I want this saga to continue?
Do I want to put up with Garmin? Answer is no, not any more than I want to drive a nail through my big toe. So.. who should I be looking at for top tier Class B AIS now that Vesper is essentially out of the market?
