Anyone in the Hamble area Friday to help wire DSC VHF to GPS?

[Babylon]

Practical help needed Southampton/Hamble area this Friday.

I've got to wire in my new Std Horizon AIS/VHF to the old Garmin 128 GPS on Friday - before heading cross-Channel at the weekend. The current set-up routes the GPS into an old Yeoman (which is being retired in favour of a yet-to-be-purchased Std Horizon chart-plotter) and I cannot make head-or-tail of the GPS wires, which seem to have been very amaturishly connected by some past bodger.

I'm sure it isn't more than a half-hour job for someone in the know, but electronics isn't my natural thing - and I don't want to spend the whole day making the mess worse or setting off without comms.

Happy to stand any willing volunteer to lunch at the Bugle or the King & Queen!

 

[lpdsn]

Practical help needed Southampton/Hamble area this Friday.

No where at all near the Hamble, but it shouldn't be a difficult job for you to do yourself.

The secret with NMEA 0183 is that each output can go to multiple inputs, but each input connects to only one output.

Is it a Gx2100? Manual says the green is the NMEA- and the blue connects to the NMEA+ output of the GPS. So that's how you get the signal into the VHF.

The next step is to identify the output of the gps and lead off the two wires you need. If it is a mess that's the difficult bit, but it'll be easier for you to work out close to the GPS. A manual will help. If you don't have one, try a websearch. Chances are, close to the GPS the colours are as the manufacturer intended.

Once you identify the NMEA output & NMEA- of the GPS, those wires still need to go to wherever they go now, but you also need the connections to the green and blue of the VHF.

Chocolate block connectors are the spawn of the devil, as other posters will confirm, but they'll work OK for you for a year or two. Connecting the two wires above successfully will get you a GPS position in the VHF and will allow a minimum use of the AIS functionality.

You can work on getting the output into your new chart plotter and any other instruments, plus upgrading from choc block connectors, at a later date.

 

[rbmatthews]

As lpdsn says, it isn't too difficult. There are basically only two wires from the GPS you need to worry about - the NMEA OUT (blue) and the Ground (black). The blue one goes to the NMEA IN+ wire on the VHF and the black one goes to the NMEA IN- wire on the VHF.

There is a description of how to do it at http://shetlandf4.wordpress.com/gps/ for the Garmin GPS 152 connecting to a Navman 7100EU - the GPS152 has the same wiring arrangement as your GPS 128. The only thing that you need to do is identify the NMEA IN+ and the NMEA IN- wires for your new VHF, but it should be in the manual.

I would be inclined to crimp them together and cover with waterproof heatshrink to ensure a good and lasting connection - the last thing you want are GPS or VHF problems due to dodgy connections just when your life depends on them.

 

[Martin_J]

Hiya..

Happy to meet up Friday morning and connect them up... Last time we met in the Hamble I seem to remember bringing the pain au chocolat... The following time I seem to remember drinking lots of beer on board..

I can even bring a spare Standard Horizon CP180 plotter and connecting cables.. in which case you could then have all the wires already connected up for you in time for the new plotter

 

[Babylon]

Thanks guys for the heads-up on the wiring - makes me realise its not actuaĺly that complex, and I was just being a wuss.

Martin, thats a great offer, and its ages since we last met to gorg ourselves on pain au chocolat! Will text to arrange.

Jon