GPS to AIS help!!

[uxb]

I've spent a large part of today trying to get my Garmin GPS Map 551 to talk to a Standard Horizon GX 2100 VHF.

I've tried to follow the 'destructions' from both manuals but they call things by different names....or probably I'm too stupid to work out what they are trying to tell me.

Can anyone help me with simple " connect the blue wire to the other blue wire" type instructions?

 

[Caer Urfa]

I've spent a large part of today trying to get my Garmin GPS Map 551 to talk to a Standard Horizon GX 2100 VHF.

I've tried to follow the 'destructions' from both manuals but they call things by different names....or probably I'm too stupid to work out what they are trying to tell me.

Can anyone help me with simple " connect the blue wire to the other blue wire" type instructions?

Hi
Not sure about your Garmin GPS but I recently wired up my SH GX2100E to my SH 300i plotter.

From the Radio to the plotter wiring is:

Radio to Plotter

Green TO Green
Blue TO Brown
Gray TO Blue
Brown TO Gray

I also had to re-set the Nmea 0183 and AIS 38400 port settings on the plotter per the manual,
but not sure what you need to do on your Garmin but you will not recieve an AIS signal until you do.

Hope this might help

Mike

 

[uxb]

Thanks Mike, I'll give it a go.

 

[yoda]

Make sure the Garmin output is set correctly in the set-up menu. You need to ensure that the baud rate is set correctly. The garmin cable comes well labled but I'm not sure the handbook has the colour codes laid out in it. I found that making sure the power cable negatives are joined together can be quite critical. The rest should simply be a matter of joining the garmin nmea output to the SH nmea input.

Yoda

 

[superheat6k]

I can tell you how to do it for a Garmin o Furuno Radio ocean RO4800 ! Lived that (bad) dream !

 

[hrchivers]

I have this setup, from the manuals:
Radio NMEA Common (Green) - Plotter Common (Black)
Radio GPS Position in (Blue) - Plotter GPS Tx/out (port 1) (Blue)
Radio DCS Output (Gray) - Plotter Channel 1 Rx/in (Brown)
Radio AIS output (Brown) - Plotter Channel 2 Rx/in (Violet)

Important - you need to set the plotter channel 2 to 38.4K baud

Good luck
Howard

 

[BigTallTim]

Don't forget that you may have to set up the radio to receive signals as well as setting up the plotter to send them...

With my own Garmin and Navman DSC radio, both devices had to be tweaked. The plotter to NMEA in/out, 4800 b/sec and the radio to receive NMEA signals

If the radio is set to receive a signal and doesn't get one, it will bleep annoyingly to let you know that the signal is not being received... a pain if you don't intend to use the feature - it could be that your radio is preset to not receive a signal, and that this must be switched on.

T

 

[uxb]

Thank you all very much, I'm going for it again tomorrow and will report back!

Well, no joy. According to the manual I should see a satellite icon on the radio screen when they are connected- which will flash if there is a problem. I get no icon.

I suppose there must be a fault somewhere.

 

[uxb]

Still no joy... I've tried a few combinations but am not getting the satellite icon- I've got about everything to do with output options on the Garmin switched on too!

 

[prv]

GPS data from Garmin to radio: Garmin black to radio green, Garmin blue to radio blue.

AIS data from radio to Garmin: Garmin violet to radio brown (this also uses the black to green connection already made).

Make sure in the Garmin that port one is set to 4800baud and port two to 38400baud.

This stuff is all in the manuals for the two devices, can't see why it's causing such bother.

EDIT: I see this is the same as Howard suggested on Monday (except I didn't bother with the DSC connection). Did you actually try this combination?

Pete

 

[Caer Urfa]

Still no joy... I've tried a few combinations but am not getting the satellite icon- I've got about everything to do with output options on the Garmin switched on too!

Hi

With the plotter off totally, you should see the AIS target ships on the SH radio anyhow, if not the problem is probably your arial.

When I had problems setting up Sam at SH said the only thing the radio does is send the AIS signal to the plotter, if the AIS targets are not showing on the radio is this because you have the AIS range set wrong on the Radio (just a thought)!

'If above is ok and the wiring colours are correct',then this leaves the AIS 38400 PORT setting are still not correct.

Hope this may be of some help.

Mike

 

[uxb]

My head hurts!


i couldn't programme a VHS and cant work the fancy telly and satellite receiver so I have no chance of getting this lot to work- but a heartfelt thanks to you all for trying to help a tech thicko.

 

[yoda]

My head hurts!


i couldn't programme a VHS and cant work the fancy telly and satellite receiver so I have no chance of getting this lot to work- but a heartfelt thanks to you all for trying to help a tech thicko.

Where are you? may be somebody close by could spare some time to help you out?

Yoda

 

[Caer Urfa]

Where are you? may be somebody close by could spare some time to help you out?

Yoda

I agree with Yoda, but I think you are also trying to do 'everything all at once', start by getting the SH radio set up and working with the AIS, then start with your plotter, BUT, step by step.

The back up support I have had from SH has been excellant and 'I assume' the same is with Garmin, so have you spoke to Garmin ?

Keep your chin up mate its just getting the wiring correct.

Mike

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Having spent an hour yesterday trying to get my Garmin to talk to the Raymarine autopilot I called the ever helpful Raymarine tech support. It seems Garmin is a bit naughty with their NMEA. Everyone else just uses a two wire system but with Garmin you connect the Garmin data out cable to the receiving device NMEA+ and then connect the Garmin negative power cable (via an offshoot wire) to the receiving device NMEA-
I would never have got that in a flipping year of fiddling. All working now

 

[prv]

It seems Garmin is a bit naughty with their NMEA [...] connect the Garmin negative power cable (via an offshoot wire) to the receiving device NMEA-

Don't see what's "naughty" about that. It's not strictly within the letter of the NMEA standard, but in fact few leisure devices are. Sharing power supply negative as NMEA negative is not uncommon, it works, and it's what their manual says.

I would never have got that in a flipping year of fiddling. All working now

Why not? As I say, it's perfectly clear in their manuals, and it's what Howard and I both stated above.

Appart from a strange desire to proceed by connecting wires together at random until it works, rather than by reading and following the instructions, I cannot fathom why simple NMEA connections keep coming up as a problem here. When the protocol was new there could be incompatibilities between different manufacturers' kit as they didn't quite do it right, but that's an issue of twenty years ago, not today.

1. Out to in
2. + to +, – to –
3. Make sure baud rates match.

That's all there is to it. And 3 is almost always set correctly out of the box, just needs checking if it doesn't immediately work.

Pete

 

[pvb]

Appart from a strange desire to proceed by connecting wires together at random until it works, rather than by reading and following the instructions, I cannot fathom why simple NMEA connections keep coming up as a problem here.

It's because many people can't be bothered to read instruction manuals.

 

[prv]

It's because many people can't be bothered to read instruction manuals.

Well, I don't necessarily read the manual for everything, but when you're given a cable with a bunch of random coloured wires to connect, surely (SURELY!) anybody's first thought would be to find out which wire does what? I mean, how else can you sensibly proceed?

Madness.

Pete

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Unnecessary casual rudeness in the posts above but it's from the usual suspects.

It was Raymarine who called Garmin 'naughty' for the wiring protocol. The Garmin wires are labelled clearly as NMEA data out and NMEA data in. So you follow the instructions and connect to Raymarine data + and -? No you don't, that only works when connecting to another Garmin product. Instead you connect the data out to the Raymarine data in positive and then ignore the instructions, phone Garmin customer support who then tell you to splice the black battery negative wire that runs to the Garmin GPS and run the splice to the Raymarine NMEA- port whilst cutting off the Garmin data in cable.

 

[prv]

The Garmin wires are labelled clearly as NMEA data out and NMEA data in. So you follow the instructions and connect to Raymarine data + and -?

Never mind that you seem to be freely mixing up in and out, why would you connect any of the Garmin positives to a Raymarine negative? That just makes no sense.

No you don't, that only works when connecting to another Garmin product

It wouldn't work then, either, because it's a nonsensical thing to do. Would you connect positive and negative battery cables together as well?

then ignore the instructions

I'm at work at the moment, but at home I have a couple of snippets of the Garmin instructions that I saved when answering UXB's original question. I'll post them when I get home, because they clearly label the negative wire as NMEA negative, and even draw a little picture of exactly what to connect to what for a typical NMEA device. Hardly "ignore the instructions".

Pete