Emtrak B100 AIS I/f to Raymarine es97 issue?

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Caladh

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Twice over last w/e I’ve had cause for concern over my AIS display. At the bottom of Soton water near Calshot I saw a large ship outbound coming down from the docks. Looking on my plotter I couldn’t see it! Then suddenly it appeared - I was not more than 2 miles from it. Yesterday heading for the Firts off Portsmouth in murkey weather I looked for incoming vessels from the Nab and saw nothing untoward. Then 4 miles ahead I saw a large car carrier Inbound appearing out of the mist. I looked on the plotter and saw in a similar position a motor vessel (icon) MMSI number and when I pressed for more detail it changed to the large ship icon and I could then see valid data ie name etc etc. I have the plotter AIS set to see vessels in a 10 mile radius and this seems to be the case. I don’t believe I’ve had a problem before. I am concerned that something is amiss but not sure what! Any ideas anyone ? I can’t see a firmware update available for the Emtrak. I am aware that AIS transmissions occur every few minutes but esp ref the incoming ship I should have been seeing it much earlier and certainly not as a mobo.
 
Interesting. I have a B100 feeding both a Raymarine plotter (Es7 from memory, the Hybrid Touch one) and a Windows 10 tablet running Opencpn. In the Solent the AIS display on Opencpn is much more reliable. Often the plotter is slow to pick up targets - as you describe- and fails to show static data when everything is available on Opencpn.

Offshore with fewer targets the plotter seems to be better- but still a bit hit and miss with the static data. My theory is that it struggles with the large number of targets in the Solent.

The AIS display on Opencpn is so good that I'm in the habit of nipping below to look at the Windows machine when I need to be sure.
 
DJE said:
Interesting. I have a B100 feeding both a Raymarine plotter (Es7 from memory, the Hybrid Touch one) and a Windows 10 tablet running Opencpn. In the Solent the AIS display on Opencpn is much more reliable. Often the plotter is slow to pick up targets - as you describe- and fails to show static data when everything is available on Opencpn.

Offshore with fewer targets the plotter seems to be better- but still a bit hit and miss with the static data. My theory is that it struggles with the large number of targets in the Solent.

The AIS display on Opencpn is so good that I'm in the habit of nipping below to look at the Windows machine when I need to be sure.
Click to expand...
Interesting perhaps but it wasn’t exactly busy in the Solent at the time. I wonder why AIS using Opencpn is better for you?
 
Caladh said:
Interesting perhaps but it wasn’t exactly busy in the Solent at the time. I wonder why AIS using Opencpn is better for you?
Click to expand...
Both systems get their AIS data from the B100 over the Seatalkng/NMEA2000 network. But Opencpn displays more data more quickly. So I suspect that the problem is with the Raymarine plotter.
I seem to remember something in the plotter manual saying that only Raymarine AIS receivers can be connected to the Seatalkng network and others should be connected to the plotter by NMEA0183. So I tried NMEA2000 for the AIS, the wiring was easier and it seemed to work. I think that might have something to do with it.
 
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I installed it all but a Raymarine installer did a commissioning inspection, gave it a clean bill of health and gave me an on-board warranty.
 
DJE said:
Both systems get their AIS data from the B100 over the Seatalkng/NMEA2000 network. But Opencpn displays more data more quickly. So I suspect that the problem is with the Raymarine plotter.
I seem to remember something in the plotter manual saying that only Raymarine AIS receivers can be connected to the Seatalkng network and others should be connected to the plotter by NMEA0183. So I tried NMEA2000 for the AIS, the wiring was easier and it seemed to work. I think that might have something to do with it.
Click to expand...
I‘ve got the Emtrak connected via SeatalkNG being the easiest way to do it. Interestingly the previous receive only was via the AIS feature on my Standard Horizon GX2200 so maybe I should try and revert to receive via that as the wiring is all there. I’m not sure how to turn off the receive bit on the Emtrak but I guess I’ll sort it out. Thing is I’ve not noticed a problem before. Rather worrying really - we hit the shipping lanes in thick fog last year en route Guernsey and relied on it although we have radar as well.
 
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