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.
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