AMEC CAMINO-701 Class A AIS Transponder

The installation of the AMEC Camino-701 was very straightforward. The manual is very good and the instructions are very detailed. The overall user interface is very good and the small screen provides an excellent backup to the primary AIS display on the chart overlay. GPS antenna was mounted under the headliner amidships (shooting through the fiberglass deck) and the signal strength is excellent with the unit being well protected from the outside environment. GPS antenna interface is capable of supplying either 3.3V or 5.0V to the external antenna, so if there is already an existing antenna which is run, that can be re-used. Running the unit on 24V power and working extremely well. Minimal average power draw. Basic functionality was achieved without any external interfaces. Continuing to integrate with the rest of the vessels electronics. I will update as these are complete. The supplied software is excellent, I realized after spending some time programming the unit through its user interface (which is very good) that the USB interface and software allows programming all of those settings with a full keyboard. Equipment to interface with: Standard Horizion Matrix AIS+ GX2150 Raymarine SeaTalk and SeaTalk NG Raytech Navigator Thus far, the only item which is requiring some thought is I had hoped to be able to pass GPS information out of the Camino-701 to the Matrix AIS+ so that the Matrix AIS+ would not be dependent on the primary ships GPS being up. A minor issue: The rotary knob appeared to not be consistently taking the "press to select" command. i.e. rotate to the correct number/letter and press to select. Turns out that the interference fit to the recess for the knob can catch the edge. Added two thicknesses paper to the hole in the knob for the shaft and it works perfectly. Planning to replace paper with a small washer as a permanant fix. The knob is now the same color as the rest of the face of the unit rather than Grey, I did let AMEC know and they are checking into it. Customer support from Milltech and AMEC has been excellent. AMEC provided pre-purchase support with less than 24 hour turn around for each response and perfect English! Milltech updated the unit on the shelf to the latest firmware and shipped out quickly. Overall an Excellent experience.