What are the differences between single-channel and dual-channel AIS receivers?
Nearly all stand-alone AIS receivers available today are dual-channel, and all receivers in Class B AIS transponders offered by Milltech Marine are dual channel. Generally, you will acquire new vessel targets sooner with dual-channel receivers and you will also get the full information about a vessel in a shorter period of time. Dual-channel receivers can receive all AIS broadcast information from both AIS channels simultaneously and consolidate the information from both channels into a single data stream. These are true dual radio receivers. In practical use, it can take up to 12 minutes for the SR161 (a single-channel receiver) to acquire the full static information broadcast from an AIS transponder. Dual channel receivers pick up all transponder broadcasts, therefore the maximum time to pick up the full static information broadcast is 6 minutes. The SR161 also picks up position updates from transponders less often than the dual channel receivers since it only picks up every other br
