AIS may be the greatest advance in marine navigation safety since the invention of radar. Imagine looking at your radar and a “blip” or “target” pops up. Depending on your navigation situation, a number of questions may start to run through your mind. Now, imagine having all of those questions answered and much more before your radar showed that “blip”. Would you feel a little more confident and secure on the water? That technology is here and it is called the Automatic Identification System (AIS).

With AIS integrated into a PC with Admiral MAX Pro, mariners can make safer and more prudent navigation decisions in less time. Admiral MAX Pro intelligently displays the many outputs of an AIS system in an easy to interpret display. Vessels equipped with AIS are consistently outputting crucial information like their location and overall length with differential GPS accuracy. Additionally, the vessel name, course and speed, destination, call sign, registration number, and other information are “broadcast”. From a navigation safety standpoint, AIS also provides the closest point of approach (CPA) and time to closest point of approach (TCPA) from your vessel. Another key feature is viewing targets. As opposed to only utilizing a small display for AIS data found on other models, Admiral MAX Pro with AIS is only limited by the size of your computer screen.

To review the latest information regarding AIS compliance and the current status on different regulations surrounding AIS transponders, we recommend you visit: www.uais.org/CarriageRequirements.htm . Jeppesen Marine’s AIS 200 receiver does not have a classification and does not transmit data, but is capable of receiving the data types from Class A transmitters.* The AIS 200 provides useful information about nearby AIS targets, including location, speed and heading.