Garmin also recently announced its first transceiver that would allow boaters to receive and transmit Automatic Identification System data, enabling a new way for mariners to identify and avoid other large sea vessels at long range in virtually any visibility.

“Small boaters and yachtsman alike will benefit from the safety and security the AIS 600 provides,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “With the AIS 600, mariners can rest assured knowing that they have visibility of the boat traffic around them and that they can be seen by other vessels while navigating through busy waterways.”

AIS 600 is capable of receiving both Class A and Class B signals simultaneously, making sure that no critical information is lost while switching between channels. Additionally, the AIS 600 features one unique built-in Active splitter with ClearTrack technology that eliminates the need for two VHF antennas, offering users more space and making installation a lot easier, without the need for additional hardware. It's exactly that active splitter that ensures all VHF and AIS communications are sent and received with minimal signal loss or interruption, while ClearTrack ensures no disruption of the AIS traffic position transmission, even when the VHF radio is in use.

This new black box AIS transceiver is even NMEA 2000 certified, and can be smoothly blended with the Garmin marine lineup. After installing it, users can easily control the AIS 600 via the chartplotter display and are provided with detailed information like ship identification data, position, course and speed for vessels equipped with an AIS transmitter within range right at their fingertips. Users will be provided with the ability to make the AIS target's position appear on their electronic chart for a variety of ranges, as well as initiate a call to any MMSI target direct from the gadget when integrated with a Garmin chartplotter and VHF radio via NMEA 2000. AIS 600 has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $1,399.99 when available in January 2010.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is