What Is the Difference Between AIS and Radar? Should I Have Both on My Boat?
Transcript is auto-generated.
hi youtubers jeff cote here with ask pys we've got a fellow voter asking a really relevant question and we give this question asked to us a lot especially when people are considering adding new features on their navigation system robert asks i'd like to add ais to my boat but can you tell me the difference from radar is there is this a product you would recommend so first of all let's try to understand what ais is ais stands for automatic identification system uh it's a way for boaters to exchange information with one another over vhf frequencies and you're exchanging boat name boat position your speed on ground your course on ground and uh there's different types of transponders there's class a transponders and class b transponders basically people that choose to transmit have class b transponders the big boats the ones that are regulated and have to transmit have class a transponders and all this information is going over the air via vhf and it's really ending to any meaning there is no middle person that is actually handling this information boaters are actually having ais receivers on board and if you have one you'll be listening over vhf frequencies uh for ais data and that information then is populated on chart plotter or on a ipad depending on what how you choose to see it and you can actually see ais targets now these boats have to transmit of course and they have to water have what are called ai's transponders and these devices are literally now you can see on your chart plotter all the big freighters around you you can see in our territory there's a lot of commercial tugs uh and you can still see you know recreational boaters uh boats that are 25 feet 30 feet 100 feet it doesn't matter all these boaters are actually showing up here chartplotter and not only that your chart plotter knows where they are they know where they're going and they know what the speed they're going and with that information you can have collision avoidance so they'll tell you if you're going to be colliding with another vessel that might be far away and eventually the two vessels will meet over a period of time so that's what ais does and we have a whole presentation just on ais if you're curious and you can spend a little bit of time doing that looking at our other youtube videos and in comparison to radar now remember ais is you need to obviously transmit to be heard if you're not transmitting nobody's going to see you so people that choose to not have an ais transponder will not be seen by other boaters and unlike radar radar you don't unless of course you're a small boat maybe fiberglass and you don't have a radar reflector you might not show up as well on a chart or a chart plot or radar screen so radar you don't need to really have a transponder to be seen by a radar radar pretty much sees most things certainly all metallic things all land so when you're weighing the pros and cons of ais or radar it's tough most of the time i tell people like you should have both now radar is probably double the price or the cost of ais so if you're really budget conscious and you can only afford one then and you can or even forward one of them then ais is probably half the cost of a radar and you might consider ais radar is amazing i mean it shows you land targets it shows you other boaters and again nobody needs to be enabled or have a transponder for you to see them on your radar screen so what i would say if you were going to consider the pros and cons of one over another if you're absolutely certain that you will never ever ever ever be in a place with no visibility i.e there will never be fog you will never do landfall at night and you're always going to be boating in great visibility then ais would be probably the right choice for you that being said if you don't if you are ever gonna do landfall or navigating at night um and uh or you're gonna be navigating a place with no visibility in a like with fog then radar is an absolute black and white must and if you had don't believe me just wait just wait you you go in a fog bank and you can't see anything you can't even see barely the bow of your boat it's an experience that will change your life and when you come back to shore you will be getting radar you will prioritize radar so ideally you want both but if you have to choose and you never go out at night and you will never have limited visibly on your boat then start with an ais thank you for watching this video if you've got further questions and you're wondering about your own boat please ask questions below or send us an email with your questions and we'll get to them hopefully as soon as possible if you haven't done so please subscribe to our youtube and get our weekly updates we're posting about four videos a week right now and also thanks for watching you
