I installed a West Marine AIS-1000 on our C&C 44 in summer 2011 in preparation for our year long trip down the US east coast to the Caribbean and back. At the time the West Marine unit was significantly less expensive than other units, in some case less than half the price. It has worked flawlessly. I installed a dedicated VHF antenna on the bimini frame and we can see traffic at > 20 miles. I liked the idea of having a redundant VHF antenna that would still be there if we lost the mast at sea, it also stays there when the mast is down on deck like it is when traversing the Erie Canal.
The AIS is tied into 2 Garmin chartplotters (helm/nav station) using NMEA 0183 as well as a laptop running Polar Navy's Polarview chartplotting sw. I will say that the Polar Navy sw does a better job of handling AIS targets in terms of collision information than the Garmin's. Jon C&C 44 Mor' Childs Play Kingston
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