New Raymarine E series Firmware Update available.

[jfm]

Maybe one of these progs would help?

http://www.sailsoft.nl/nmea_simulator.html

Thanks loads Hurricane. The GPS simulator looks like it will do the trick. It is freeware for the first 100 sentences then you need a $43 licence. If I send a sentence to the Raymarine saying I'm in London, then 5 mins later another one saying I'm in Cairo or wherever happens to be 2400nm away (I can get he lat/long for those 2 locations easily, obviously), with the Raym powered on the whole time, do you think the Raym will just log 2400nm travelled, from those 2 sentences, job done?

I'm not trying to avoid the $43. Rather I'd prefer just to create 2 sentences, rather than 200 or whatever little increments

 

[Hurricane]

I'm not convinced that your technique will work.
If I was writing the Raymarine software, I'd include some limits so that your idea wouldnt work.
Just think - you put your boat on a shipment from Southampton to (say) Palma and the log increments by 1500nm.
I bet this doesnt happen.
The solution would be to do it in smaller increments.

BTW - My system is short like yours because the boat was delivered to Swanwick with Furuno kit and then the Raymarine installed later. So, my trip is short by a couple of hundred miles. I cant really summon up the enthuiasm to correct it though.

However, I can probably help you if you are going to connect a PC to your new plotters. Ive written several little PC apps that run on the PC using the Comar's spare NMEA channel. Most of my apps "talk" through the PC's speakers so you probably wouldnt be interested but you (or anyone) would be welcome to any of the apps that I've written.

 

[MapisM]

I'm not convinced that your technique will work.

Neither am I. Actually J, on second thought, even the two mushrooms thingie might be useless.
Surely any GPS software includes some sort of algorythm to filter inconsistencies.
And both a London-Cairo jump and a huge number of frequent short jumps back and forth between the two mushrooms could obviously be seen as spurious inputs to be filtered out, depending on how the sw is written.

Hurric, re. those apps you wrote, I'd be curious to hear more about their functionalities. I also interfaced my notebook with onboard instruments a few years ago, just for the sake of it, but I struggled to find good reasons to keep it connected...

 

[Hurricane]

Neither am I. Actually J, on second thought, even the two mushrooms thingie might be useless.
Surely any GPS software includes some sort of algorythm to filter inconsistencies.
And both a London-Cairo jump and a huge number of frequent short jumps back and forth between the two mushrooms could obviously be seen as spurious inputs to be filtered out, depending on how the sw is written.

Hurric, re. those apps you wrote, I'd be curious to hear more about their functionalities. I also interfaced my notebook with onboard instruments a few years ago, just for the sake of it, but I struggled to find good reasons to keep it connected...

Now you've started me..........

The logger is the most contraversial app.
Just ask those who have been on long passages with me!!

Its a very simple app that reads a continuous GPS NMEA stream and every half an hour (adjustable) the PC "speaks" and reminds the crew to make a log entry. Not only does it remind, but it "speaks" the COG, SOG and time etc. Despite complaints from the crew, I continue to use it because it provides an excellent discipline whilst making a boreing job more interesting.

Here's a video clip - the sound pickup on the camera wasnt too good but the PC voice is clearly output through the boat's entertainment speaker system. You can also just hear Derek referring to the PC's voice. I think he was being complementary about it!!! I also have connected the PC's video output to all the nav stations but in fact once the app is running you dont actually need to look at the PC's screen at all because the PC "speaks" everything audibaly.








Another app is an anchor alarm. In this case, my "on board" PC uses a GPS dongle to get its position thus keeping the service batteries drain to a minimum. A graphical display plots the boats movement within a green disc. If the boat moves out of the green disc an alarm is set off (again this can be verbal!!!). I think I made this app a little complicated - it plots HDOP and the number of satelites used to obtain the fix. It then plots this with LAT and LONG. HDOP is calculated by all GPS receivers and provides an indication of the quality of the fix. The idea behind this was to see how accurate the GPS was when providing an anchor alarm. The reality is that its normally good enough but the display does give you an indication of how well its working. I also added a proximity alarm and the ability to move the green disc so that the centre of the radius was over the actual anchor thus allowing a complete swing - so to speak.

Here's a screen shot.

 

[PaulGooch]

I'm not convinced that your technique will work.
If I was writing the Raymarine software, I'd include some limits so that your idea wouldnt work.
<snip>

Don't forget, it is Raymarine you're discussing here. My C90W will increment the log while the boat is on her mooring.