HA! Got it.

It was the dawn of a new day.  I decided to tackle the AIS yet again.   I also decided to pour a cup of coffee since I was listing to starboard.

For my landlubber friends AIS is an acronym for Automatic Identification System, a radio that broadcasts the name, type of vessel, speed, and course over ground of my boat and receives data of boats around me. It is used primarily for collision avoidance. It is required for all large ships and all passenger vessels. A lower cost type B is now available for recreational boats, which is what Drift Away has.

If you remember from yesterday's blog, I was trying to figure out where to connect two tiny 22 gauge data wires from the AIS to a WAGO terminal block.  I stuck those data wires in every place I could think of, but still the AIS wouldn't display on the chartplotter. I finally cheated and connected the wires in the same holes in the terminal block as the chartplotter's (yeah, I know, but it's my boat), still NG.  Finally, I started messing around with settings on the AIS and under the network list, it said there wasn't a network.  Being a computer guy, I had an "aha" moment.   I pulled all the crap out from under the helm station, traced the Simnet cable from the AIS to the Simnet joiner laying on the floor and plugged it in. Viola.

Anyway, now I can see other vessels right on my 12" touchscreen.   This, combined with the radar overlay, clearly identifies other boats around me.  This is a great thing, especially in marginal conditions like fog, or night.  In the pic below, I touched the icon for Winning Drive, a yacht about a half a mile away in Spa Creek (BTW, Winning Drive is owned by the owner of the Baltimore Ravens.  Go Ravens!).

The chartplotter will even sound an alarm if we're on a collision course.  Very cool.

And as the sun set, I celebrated with a victory beer.