GPS not talking to VHF problem

[Seapepper]

I have a Raymarine 54E DSC VHF radio connected to my Garmin GPS 60. But they don't talk to each other. So I connected the Garmin to friends VHF and immediately it gave a position on the VHF screen....ok, GPS is working and set up correctly. Next I sent the VHF back to Raymarine, expecting the fault to be there. The tested it and had it talking with a gps all day with no problems. So I bought a new connecting cable for rhe Garmin, thinking the one supplied with the unit must be faulty. Still not on speaking terms. All the cabling is connected exactly as shown in the manual, so that is not the problem.

Any ideas any on how to make these two mardy children talk to each other would be very much appreciated.

Why doesn't any manufacturer make a dsc vhf with a built in GPS...problem solved ?

 

[MoodySabre]

Look at page 68 of the GPS Manual - are you sure that it is set for NMEA Out and not Text Out.

They both use different versions of NMEA 0183 but I don't kow if that is relevant.

 

[Stemar]

Another thing to check is the baud rate. I had to change this on my Garmin gps before it would talk to my SH VHF.

 

[Boathook]

I have a Raymarine 54E DSC VHF radio connected to my Garmin GPS 60. But they don't talk to each other. So I connected the Garmin to friends VHF and immediately it gave a position on the VHF screen....ok, GPS is working and set up correctly. Next I sent the VHF back to Raymarine, expecting the fault to be there. The tested it and had it talking with a gps all day with no problems. So I bought a new connecting cable for rhe Garmin, thinking the one supplied with the unit must be faulty. Still not on speaking terms. All the cabling is connected exactly as shown in the manual, so that is not the problem.

Any ideas any on how to make these two mardy children talk to each other would be very much appreciated.

Why doesn't any manufacturer make a dsc vhf with a built in GPS...problem solved ?

I thought that Raymarine used it's own language (seatalk) and a 'translator' is required for communications either way?

 

[Heckler]

Most "things" you can change to nmea in and out instead of the proprietary "talk"
Stu

 

[noelex]

I have a Raymarine 54E DSC VHF radio connected to my Garmin GPS 60. But they don't talk to each other. So I connected the Garmin to friends VHF and immediately it gave a position on the VHF screen....ok, GPS is working and set up correctly. Next I sent the VHF back to Raymarine, expecting the fault to be there. The tested it and had it talking with a gps all day with no problems. So I bought a new connecting cable for rhe Garmin, thinking the one supplied with the unit must be faulty. Still not on speaking terms. All the cabling is connected exactly as shown in the manual, so that is not the problem.

Any ideas any on how to make these two mardy children talk to each other would be very much appreciated.

Why doesn't any manufacturer make a dsc vhf with a built in GPS...problem solved ?

Does the Raymarine 54E have bare wires or a plug? If it is a plug with multiple pins like the ICOM radios a common mistake is to look at the wiring diagram for socket on the back of the radio and then wire the plug like this. Left and right pins are of course reversed.

 

[duncan]

connections are Garmin Brown to Raymarine Yellow, Garmin Black to Raymarine Green *this needs to be a direct conection and simply connecting this Green to the boats earth can cause problems (despite the Garmins black being connected to it already). These are the actual wires from the Garmin plugged lead and the seperate Raymarine NMEA interface wiring.

Garmin interface to NMEA - unless your friends VHF unit was a Garmin it will already be set to this to work with that.

Barring the connections the most likely issue here is that the Garmin uses an up to date NMEA sentence v3.01 (only) and the Raymarine is an old unit taking NMEA v1.5.

Theoretically it's backwards compatible and the Raymarine should be happy...

Neither manual shows any options for either unit to define what's sent, or expected.

What was the unit that it worked with?

 

[MoodySabre]

Another thing to check is the baud rate. I had to change this on my Garmin gps before it would talk to my SH VHF.

Manual says the baud rate for the Garmin 60 is fixed. No baud rate stated for the VHF.

 

[Guitarrich]

NMEA comms

Boathook et al - Raymarine DO have a proprietary network called "Seatalk". However, they still use NMEA 0183 on most products. In fact the ONLY radio with a Seatalk connection is the Ray 240. Certainly the Ray 54 uses NMEA 0183. The baud rate is the standard "4800".

Not sure what the garmin 60 GPS puts out, but I'd be very surprised indeed if it was NOT 4800. One way to check NMEA 0183 output is with Hyperterminal. This used to be a standard computer "widget" in the days before the term "widget" was invented. It is still possible to download it if you don't have it. Next you need a "serial COM" port. This again is no longer standard on modern computers but can be simulated with a USB dongle. Once you have access to a COM port, then pin 5 is common and pin 2 will "listen" to data. When you set up Hyperterminal you can specify baud rate (and port) and this will identify exactly what you've got coming out of the GPS. You will see a bunch of sentances which include GLL, GGA etc. (There are proprietry characters before this).
Too much info? Ah yes, sorry.
Duncan was bang on with the wire colours.

 

[WALLY]

Why doesn't any manufacturer make a dsc vhf with a built in GPS...problem solved ?

Because fixed VHF's *tend* to be down below, and for the best reception a GPS antenna needs a view of the sky.

(And before anyone else mentions it i know that GPS's can work perfectly well down below, but not on all boats.)

 

[ghostlymoron]

I had a similar problem when installing a Lowrance plotter connected to my existing icom VHF. The problem is most likely the baud rate setting as someone else has mentioned. Rather than going the 'Hyperterminal' route I would suggest 'trial and error' which is what worked for me. I just tried each setting on the plotter til I found one that worked - you won't damage either pieces of equipment doing this. I later came across the relevant data in the manual which I suppose I should have looked at in the first place.

 

[pvb]

The problem is most likely the baud rate setting as someone else has mentioned.

People do keep mentioning baud rate, neatly ignoring the fact that neither the Garmin GPS60 nor the Raymarine 54E has any provision for changing baud rate (as duncan already said).