SEATTLE – November 3, 2008 – Milltech Marine Inc., one of the leading providers of marine Automated Identification System (AIS) products, is pleased to announce it has signed a master distribution agreement with Comar Systems Ltd. for its complete range of AIS hardware products. AIS is a vessel transponder technology that is currently used by most of the commercial shipping industry and increasingly by recreational boaters throughout the world. The main benefit of AIS is to allow boat operators to see and be seen by other vessels, greatly increasing safety at sea and assisting with collision avoidance. Each vessel equipped with an AIS transponder sends out a packet every few seconds over marine VHF channels with information about the ship and its voyage. With an AIS receiver, you can pick up these radio signals and have them translated into data sentences that can be accessed using computers and marine navigation equipment.
United Kingdom-based Comar Systems Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of AIS hardware products including AIS receivers, AIS transponders and VHF antenna splitters. Comar’s innovative product line delivers many of the features most often requested by commercial and recreational boaters.
“The addition of the Comar Systems product line enables our customers and dealers to gain access to features not found in other AIS products. These features include support for USB, RS-422 NMEA interfaces, network capabilities and an active marine VHF antenna splitter for use with AIS transponders,” said Doug Miller, president of Milltech Marine Inc. “In addition, Comar has a superb reputation in the industry with a long history of producing high-quality marine electronic products.”
“This agreement is a significant milestone for Comar. Milltech, like us, is a specialist AIS company and we are very proud to be working with a company that has such an excellent reputation in the US market,” said Peter Cotton, managing director of Comar Systems. “We believe this is a great fit for both companies and are looking forward to working with Milltech to develop the Comar brand in the US.”
