See the excelent AIS article on the link below that I had found on the
Panmbo's Home Page


http://www.motorboating.com/motorboa...069419,00.html

Thanks Dave,

I agree with You that, in relation to displays, the biger always is
better, mostly if your apps is more like a VTS than onboard use. But I
see that Si-Tex has chart plotters with display sizes from 5.5-10.5 "
and it has AIS, FishFinder and radar displaying info on the chart.
Garmin has ploters 3010/06/05 wich has 10/6/5 inches respectively, and
that already suport the Radar display, fishfinder and the gps chart
plotter. The NASA AIS radar has a display of 5".

I agree that the Map276C with 4" is a little small for all this, but I
think that a small display with AIS is better than no AIS at all.

BTW, I think that, when Garmin have the AIS receiver, it can easily
develop a function on MapSource/BlueChart to display AIS related
information on the larger TFT PC/Laptop flat screens, in a VTS style,
like others marine softwares like ShipPlotter, already are doing.

Best Regards

Pascal