Playing with our AIS (Automatic Identification System) which is connected to our MacBook. Our boat is the yellow-orange boat in the marina - the Kemp Marina in downtown Sault Ste Marie, MI, USA. The Buffalo is a large laker; we were warned that it would pass within a couple of hundred yards of us (it did) - you can see its track. There is another large boat in the MacArthur Lock.
Technical notes (can be safely ignored): The charting program is Coastal Explorer. It is a Microsoft .exe program running under XP in a virtual machine under Mac's Snow Leopard OS. The AIS is connected to a USB port on the Mac, sending NMEA-0183 data to the CE chartplotter program where the AIS info is overlaid on the chart. I have to configure this whole mess so everyone can do their part in relaying the incoming data through all these things to the CE program. As CE is a Microsoft-type program, it will do practically everything but is so complicated that real people can't use it, or use more than a small fraction of its capabilities. Sometimes I can figure out how to do this. Punch Line: Much too complicated to set up and run this in real time; I use the Garmin chartplotter at the helm to notify me of impending collisions when underway. Actually, I use Visual Flight Rules, looking at the chartplotter and its AIS data only for distraction and amusement. [I warned you not to read this.]
Pictures of the computer screen weren't so good. Sorry - so Soo me / or maybe Suomi?
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