AIS Transponders
An AIS transponder is essential for safety on the water. It's the active link between seeing and being seen. It provides peace of mind in busy traffic and ensures you're never overlooked. While radar sometimes misses small boats, an AIS transponder continuously transmits your exact position and course to surrounding vessels. The main benefits are:
- Collision avoidance: The system warns you when the course is dangerous (CPA alarm), even in fog or at night.
- Direct contact: You see the vessel names of others, making targeted radio communication easy in unclear situations.
- Faster rescue: In an emergency, emergency services can immediately locate your vessel. And with a press of the KS-200A+SART's Emergency button, surrounding vessels will immediately see your Distress Alert on their plotter screen.
ONWA offers two types of AIS transponder solutions. Both utilize enhanced Class B+ (SOTDMA) technology and transmit at 5W.
- Black Box Transponder - The KS-200A+ (in versions with and without a SART button) performs basic AIS transponder functions and transmits received position data from surrounding vessels to a connected chartplotter (NMEA0183/2000) or navigation app (WiFi). The KS-200A+ AIS transponder is priced comparable to competing AIS receivers.
- AIS transponder with display - The KP-2xA series are essentially chartplotters with a built-in AIS transponder. However, they (particularly the KP-25A and KP-27A) can also be used below deck as an AIS transponder with a built-in display. The advantage is that you can make important information available (below deck) that would otherwise only be available on deck, such as the positions of other vessels (on the free included nautical chart), AIS and anchor alarms. On deck, a standard chartplotter that receives the AIS data from the KP-2xA below deck via NMEA is sufficient. In this case, a KP-2xA can compete with the much more expensive solutions from Icom (MA-510TR) and Vesper Marine (WatchMate Vision).
