On 15 Dec 2005 23:46:09 -0800, "markvictor" wrote:

Thanks for the info,Dave, So you would use the ARPA for the target and
then use the AIS to give an actual identity to it? Sounds like that
would be a pretty handy feature as an overlay,

That's the plan I think, but personally I can see problems. Around here we
get a LOT of data. I was on a boat in Singapore a few weeks back & playing
with a stand-alone AIS (can't remember the brand) but it had a "radar"
display on it, and when you zoomed out to 24nm range it would just crash the
whole AIS box because there was too much data! I think at any one time in
Singapore there are 2000 to 3000 ships & it's a small island, so they are
probably all within AIS range!

So, just getting AIS into a PC display system reliably while trying to do
other things is a big task. Introducing ARPA is something the customer wants
to do mainly to highlight vessels that have ARPA returns but no AIS, as these
are the more worrying targets. I'm skeptical as to whether it will work on a
PC system in the real world though. If I can find some simulator or even
sample ARPA data I'd trying pushing it in & see what sort of throughput we
get before everything falls over.

Dave