While scouting around for a new vhf I see there's a few combos on the market, ie. B&G v60. Are the screens on these units visible ? Or is it a case of having to pair with a chart plotter ?

I would look at it all the time (similar but raymarine) if below and I wasn't sitting at the nav station where the 15" monitor is. The VHF is always in a good visible spot, so any inbuilt AIS display is too. They might be monochrome, but the viewing angle is really good as a by product.
I also used AIS mode on the multifunction displays at each helm a fair bit. Same size'ish, but with colour.
So yes, I found it quite useful, but only until I sat in front of the bigger display with a mouse with an AIS map. Then I would promptly forget that the funky little black and white display ever existed.

Edit: Just thinking of other nice things, the other 'pages' or modes I used a lot. There should be a page that shows the number of satellites and how many in lock, that was a really handy page/display. There was another with VHF and AIS receiver signal strengths, that was super handy. The MMSI data page was good, the simple LAT/LONG page was good, the DSC page I found really handy. Excellent troubleshooting and a quick status check of lots of cool info.
I used all of those pages. I'd get a combo unit for that reason alone, irrespective of if one is adding a chat plotter function as well.

Cheers shaggy that's a great wrap. The B&G was for example. I'm glad the funky little black & white screen is a goer. I'm avoiding making my nav area look like a space ship control. That's at least until paper charts are a long gone. tho I'm a bit tempted by navigation lap tops refurbed tough books

I have the VHF with AIS right in front of me and it's screen is fine. I also run a mini windows computer and a 20 inch monitor in portrait configuration. OpenCPN on a 20 inch monitor with the AIS is superb but I often go days were I don't bother with the computer and the small screen is fine.

I hadn't had a look at refurbed tough books for a while. So I had a look and .....mmmmmmm.
I. Must. Resist.
There is some pretty nice kit available. I didn't realise they were that cheap,
I specced up this Dell to onboard GPS, 5G and gruntier everything, for 2.3 K that's a lot of laptop.


This Mk1 tough book specced up, the same as above, is $1.8K.


Either would be a great solution for a boat. And a quarter/third of the price of a new one.

These are a bit of an overkill and have snuck up a bit in price. I think I paid around $100. Stick em in a locker or drawer.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294415861666?_skw=mini+windows+computers&itmmeta=01KGTCKENV61MMBDDBKSJK7RP5&hash=item448c8d87a2%3Ag%3AcgIAAOSwFYVfYB35&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA8GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xDuryxNm%2BRxQcXnyHnLI1GSFfK0pgr5h2ouM35vbA38KqjQDOqffQ%2FmIAkM7wmMg%2BkKXRKXM%2F54Uj%2BbEinC0yv67ru1XY%2BUdmZh4p7U9Zv%2Bs0M4b%2FwsjWpCP%2F3bzX%2B52xCzTC3bGrLoMPMOUKGlR70Vd6PuZ1D6l7qbSYsA%2Bz6N9ueaQ5SCb6lvlHVRyoWYjcb45wXcq1Ua%2FHcKL8EA5w4j%2BobXnm9VvmnglQgYARuOU%2BjRpcdKYmyGoKGRTCLZYAk0KMQayvGgE7zPcTgqpmQVeQNvBIA9sN3oO%2BncVty%2Fpg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5DrzcyGZw&LH_ItemCondition=4

I have owned and used the Lowrance Link 9 VHF, AIS DSC ($679). Great price, good unit and has a small monochrome display on front. Easy to use once you get used to it although when I set AIS alarms it would send me totally bonkers with constant AIS alarms. Probably more to do with my settings but it was such an issue I turned the alarms off except for night sailing. When an alarm would sound, I'd have to leave the helm and go below to cancel the alarm and see what the issue was.

I have also recently purchased the Raymarine Ray 73, VHF DSC AIS unit ($1200-$1300) which is integrated into my Raymarine network. Although it does have a display, the display doesn't show AIS targets or information (or maybe it does and I haven't looked deep enough into it to switch it on). It does however throw the AIS target data overlayed on my Element 9 Chartplotter. It's much easier to use and see what's going on right at the helm station. Problem is I now need a 2nd mic station at the helm as new boat is much larger and further to go below to answer radio. (Handheld at helm suffices for now).

Both are good units. I think Raymarine is a bit better and more intuitive when networked to Chartplotter but is also more expensive. Both can be networked. I went with Raymarine on the new boat as I already had a full Raymarine instrument setup and network.

At almost half the price, the Lowrance is excellent value.

Darren

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Ramona said..
These are a bit of an overkill and have snuck up a bit in price. I think I paid around $100. Stick em in a locker or drawer.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294415861666?_skw=mini+windows+

Ramona,
For the electrically challenged, how easy are these to convert to 12V input, not using an inverter?

I don't like my Raspberry Pi and would like change to windows based.

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EastCoastSail said..

Ramona said..
These are a bit of an overkill and have snuck up a bit in price. I think I paid around $100. Stick em in a locker or drawer.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294415861666?_skw=mini+windows+

Ramona,
For the electrically challenged, how easy are these to convert to 12V input, not using an inverter?

I don't like my Raspberry Pi and would like change to windows based.

You can buy 'pocket size' inverters for ~$50. It would probably cost more than that to convert to 12v input.
baintech.com.au/product/baintech-pocket-inverter-12v-150w/
Sean

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SeanTsv said..

EastCoastSail said..

Ramona said..
These are a bit of an overkill and have snuck up a bit in price. I think I paid around $100. Stick em in a locker or drawer.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294415861666?_skw=mini+windows+

Ramona,
For the electrically challenged, how easy are these to convert to 12V input, not using an inverter?

I don't like my Raspberry Pi and would like change to windows based.

You can buy 'pocket size' inverters for ~$50. It would probably cost more than that to convert to 12v input.
baintech.com.au/product/baintech-pocket-inverter-12v-150w/
Sean

Wouldn't that increase the power consumption significantly? DC/AC/DC

I have a low consumption boat, that's the reason why the Pi originally appealed.

Ramona you can get a "12v industrial pc" from Ali Express that will have ssd and run windows. I bought one that has built in serial and rs485 ports meaning NMEA0183.

Still a good idea to run some kind of 12v regulator upstream of it.

Raspberry Pi lost the plot somewhat with the later versions. They need 5.1 volts and north of 2 amps.

Seatronic make really nice kit, but not as budget friendly as the Chinese!
I had a Seatronic ALIZES, conformal coated (laquered) boards that stood up well to a lot of abuse, it's a nice peice of kit. DC powered, used to draw about 0.6 amps at 12V.

Select to expand quote

EastCoastSail said..

Ramona said..
These are a bit of an overkill and have snuck up a bit in price. I think I paid around $100. Stick em in a locker or drawer.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294415861666?_skw=mini+windows+

Ramona,
For the electrically challenged, how easy are these to convert to 12V input, not using an inverter?

I don't like my Raspberry Pi and would like change to windows based.

I just use one of these.
www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010420923419.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.7633Ik7vIk7vg2&algo_pvid=b860deff-6f14-4b85-9658-1d285706a9b5&algo_exp_id=b860deff-6f14-4b85-9658-1d285706a9b5-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%2244%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21AUD%2150.04%2122.11%21%21%21241.16%21106.55%21%402101c44f17709676352752555ee93e%2112000052354403321%21sea%21AU%21753417160%21X%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29919%3Bd%3A2f72d192%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895%3BpisId%3A5000000200977272&curPageLogUid=WFOuurJJS5FI&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A1005010420923419%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

Sorry, i meant to address that to ECS.

Aldi had some 12v televisions recently...

Thank you