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I stumbled upon this review and it looks to be a pretty badass VHF. http://www.panbo.com/archives/2016/1...ass_b_ais.html
Not sure many here would use AIS transmit, though I can speak from experience that big ships will see you better with it, especially offshore.
The wireless stations (with intercom?) look to be really useful. No need to have VHF radios all over the place now.
Again, fewer boxes and wires on the boat seems good.
I would love to have one of those but when are they going to be on the market??
I'd be more comfortable with a seperate radio and ais.
Remember the single point of failure issue.
For me, AIS is just a "nice to have" safety feature. Failure isn't such a big deal, since I bet 80-90% of where I cruise, nobody will have AIS anyway. The new dopler radar is more useful.
I'd say one of these radios with the wireless station and a handheld backup would be sufficient. If one wants a 25W backup, toss in a cheap VHF backup at the other station (already installed for me).
Fewer electronic boxes means fewer wires means fewer points of failure and easier maintenance on the fewer things!
I'd look at the garmin 600 ais and the vhf 300 box with 2 mics. If you blow a fuse on a combo unit you lose both. I usually hook up radios on seperate feeds than the main electronics in case of a failure.
The new solid state radars are not well received in this area as most fishermen don't find it meets their needs.
I'm reading on the interwebs that solid state radars don't see the birds as well, but they are pretty amazing at traffic tracking and separation. I care about avoiding boats, not so much about finding birds.....but I have the old CRT Furuno for that
Here's some pretty amazing features for a small boat radar: http://www.panbo.com/archives/2016/0...efinitely.html
Looks like it's starting to show up for sale. Probably settle around $800-900 http://www.marineoutfitters.ca/index...30&code=GX6500