AIS250 (old Raymarine): Anyone know which AIS/VDM messages it outputs?

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RIBW

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The manual doesn't help.
Two phone calls and two emails to Raymarine over the last month have produced silence.

I currently have neither a chartplotter that displays anything other than Class A/B vessels nor a PC with a 9pinD to read the output's data. I'd like to know its capabilities so I can decide its fate in my electronics revamp.

Does anyone know specifically which messages it forwards?

Or, what is a simple/cheap way to monitor the NMEA stream with a modern PC with USBs so I can see which messages are processed.

Thanks
Bob
 
Raymarine manuals can be found here..
http://www.raymarine.co.uk/manuals-documents/

If you select AIS Documents -> Retired / Legacy AIS -> AIS_250 -> English (EN) then you will find the lengthy Installation manual.

Page 27 has the specification showing VDM sentence only.

A shorter 2 page brochure can be found at JGTech and confirms this..
https://www.jgtech.com/pdf/AIS250_Brochure.pdf

As Paul says - A USB->Serial adapter is needed, together with a bit of fiddly wiring and a knowledge of COM ports on your laptop if you really wish to see the NMEA0183 sentences... We can help further with this if really needed.
 
I do see however what you're asking now.. The AIVDM is a single sentence, potentially containing rather a lot of information..

The question now is whether the AIS250 is not capturing/decoding all that's needed or if it's just the chartplotter that's not showing all the information the AIS250 is presenting in the decoded AIVDM sentence.

Perhaps as you say - Connect a laptop running OpenCPN.. or borrow a chart plotter and see if it displays anything extra.. I guess you're wondering if AToNs for example are missing from your chartplotter display.
 
Paul,
Thanks for the suggestion but at £28, just to read some data, I think I'll be putting it towards an Em-Trak.
Cheers
Bob
 
Last edited:
Martin_J said:
...... The question now is whether the AIS250 is not capturing/decoding all that's needed or if it's just the chartplotter that's not showing all the information the AIS250 is presenting in the decoded AIVDM sentence.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply Martin - apologies if i wasn't clear,

I know neither of my chartplotters display AtoNs, so, you are right, the question is which of the VDM messages does the AIS250 push out. In particular, what does it do with Message 21?

I was trying to think through all the options before splurging on a new MFD

Martin_J said:
......Connect a laptop running OpenCPN.. .......
Click to expand...

I've been keeping a 10 year old WinXP netbook on a just in case basis - I was surprised/had forgotten that it didn't have a RS232 port. That along with a simple terminal programme would have solved my problem.

Cheers
Bob
 
RIBW said:
Thanks for the reply Martin - apologies if i wasn't clear,

I know neither of my chartplotters display AtoNs, so, you are right, the question is which of the VDM messages does the AIS250 push out. In particular, what does it do with Message 21?

I was trying to think through all the options before splurging on a new MFD



I've been keeping a 10 year old WinXP netbook on a just in case basis - I was surprised/had forgotten that it didn't have a RS232 port. That along with a simple terminal programme would have solved my problem.

Cheers
Bob
Click to expand...

AIS AtoN messages are relatively "new" and may well not be processed fully. Display depends on both the source of the AIS messages on board and the plotter concerned. Older firmware versions of either are less likely to work.

It's not really a hardware problem, but manufacturers are rarely willing to spend money on tweaking firmware for customers with older kit when they can sell new stuff.....
 
Dear All,
Some feedback:-

The Raymarine AIS250 does process message 21. I couldn't check other 'new' messages because they are not readily available locally.
It produced the following data in response to the Breaksea Safe water buoy.
!AIVDM,1,1,,A,E>jHCU>Q92PUaRPh1:WdP000000OpJ8g>cqc@10888QgB0,4*37
Note the letter 'E' means '21' in AIS speak.

I have seen the following messages 1,3,5,18,21 & 24.

In my case, that means the unit provides the data I need as long as I use NMEA0183. Now to find a way of displaying the targets in full. I was hoping to use OpenCPN on my 'sailing' netbook which runs WindowsXP but OpenCPN have stated that support for XP is being withdrawn. Looks like it'll be a W10 laptop.

Cheers
Bob

[FYI I used a cheapo RS422 converter from eBay - ~£5 - with an absolutely useless manual and which needed an obscure Windows 10 driver from the depths of googleworld. As a terminal programme I used PuTTY which worked well. I used http://ais.tbsalling.dk/ to decode the sentences].
 
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