I also have a SH GX2150 VHF/AIS receiver, and am very pleased with it. I bought it at West Marine during one of the member only sales and I think it was about $239 plus tax when on sale.
In my 40+ years of sailing experience I’ve come to realize that a handheld VHF is a holder for dead batteries. So I installed the new VHF radio in the cockpit near the engine instrument panel, with a VHF antenna mounted on my radar mast. That way I have redundant 25 watt VHF/DSC radios (with separate antennas) using the same MMSI number, and have a full power radio both at the helm and at the nav station. I considered a RAM mic for the helm, but found the small screen to be less than satisfactory – especially the AIS display. My radio at the helm gets GPS input from the Garmin plotter at the helm, and both are powered off the same breaker at the fuse panel. So when I power up, both radio and GPS get power. It was relatively simple to wire the NEMA1 output from the plotter to the NEMA input of the VHF, with a 3rd wire in the harness providing a connection from the AIS to the plotter. Then you make a selection on the NEMA2 input of the plotter to convert it to a high speed data input, and – voila – the AIS information is overlaid on the larger color screen of the plotter. Rick Brass Washington, NC From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 3:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Stus-List Standard Horizon GX2150 VHF/AIS + GPS Hi, I am enjoying a conference in Rome this week, and I want to add to the AIS chat before I get back and the discussion becomes too stale. For some time I have been eyeballing the GX2150 VHF/AIS with the hope that Standard Horizon would come out with an update which included a built in GPS(I even call SH and asked about it, but there are no indications of SH doing so). Standard Horizon is having a Fall rebate of $50 on the GX2150, and I found a great price of $299 for a GX2150 at GPScity.com. At total cost of $250, I could not pass this up and so I purchased a unit. It arrived two days before my flight out to Italy, and rather than preparing my conference talk, I was wiring and test the GX2150 ( hey, my talk is not until Wednesday). To provide the NMEA GPS I was planning on running a line from my gps enabled sounder, but then I looked into connecting one of those GPS pucks to the vhf instead. I ordered a $30 GlobalSat BR-355 PS/2 GPS(which arrived a day before the GX2150), cut off the PS/2 connector, wired the unit to provide 5V using a simple 5V regulator chip, and connected grounds and vhf NMEA input to the GPS NMEA output. Instant success. If anyone is interested, I can provide more details and photos when I get back. See the workbench photo showing the GPS info screen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yqv14140eh0kl7/Photo%20Sep%2024%2C%208%2047%2049%20PM.jpg Very happy with the GX2150, I just ordered a RAM3 remote mic which has a matrix dot screen so I will have AIS info and a VHF in the cockpit. I have also been in communications with the folks at SailTimer (I have one of their wind vanes) and vYachts to get a bios compatible wireless NMEA multiplexer(~$130). This way, I will be able to use iNavX and display both wind and AIS information in the same app. Digital Yacht makes a unit which will work (WLN 10) but it costs over 2.5 times the vYacht unit. All in all, it is a nice do it yourself project at a very reasonable cost. -- Paul Eugenio S/V Johanna Rose Carrabelle, FL
_______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com [email protected]
