corinthmistral
Member
Hope this may assist anyone who has bought or is thinking about buying one of these.
I purchased this recently and have just finished installing it. It’s really very easy to install - connect the power, plug in the GPS “puck”/aerial and plug in a VHf aerial. Then connect to a DSC VHF (see below.)
Power on, and it found its position within 30 seconds. I have mine fitted at the chart table, flush mounted. I wasn’t sure how sensitive the GPS would be, but I just placed it on top of the unit as recommended (it has a simple magnetic area on top, and the GPS puck just sits there) and it seems to work fine.
Connecting to a VHF. The connection was straightforward - I connected the NMEA0183 outputs to the VHF GPS inputs. So far so good ... but no signal received by the VHF. An hour of Googling and messing about ... you have to set the plotter up so that it’s NMEA GPS outputs are enabled. The Onwa manual (available online ) tells you how to do it. Then you need to set the baud rate too (for my unit, it needed setting to 4800.) So, when these two steps were completed, it then worked fine.
As this isn’t clear from the either the GPS instructions or in the VHF manual, hopefully this may assist anyone else buying this unit.
One could debate all day long whether a “cheapo” Onwa unit is worthwhile or whether it’s better to shell out for a B&G or other brand. From my experience to date, the Onwa is phenomenally good value - for its price (around £550) it gives a 7” colour chart plotter, UK and Northern European charts (their own “K Charts”), Class A AIS (receiver), Class B AIS (transmitter) and it interfaces with a DSC VHF. For my purposes, it does everything I need. It includes a mounting bracket, or can be flush mounted. It included the data cable too.
Hope this may be of use to anyone installing, or thinking about buying, this unit.
No connection to Onwa or the distributors. I bought mine from Mantsbrite in Maldon, and their service was excellent - they have lots of different navigation equipment for sale and it is all rigged up so I could see the unit running, have a demo and the chap who runs it explained how to use it and how to wire it up etc. It’s increasingly rare to find sellers that you can go and speak to(!) and see things working, so well done Mantsbrite, your good service is much appreciated.
I purchased this recently and have just finished installing it. It’s really very easy to install - connect the power, plug in the GPS “puck”/aerial and plug in a VHf aerial. Then connect to a DSC VHF (see below.)
Power on, and it found its position within 30 seconds. I have mine fitted at the chart table, flush mounted. I wasn’t sure how sensitive the GPS would be, but I just placed it on top of the unit as recommended (it has a simple magnetic area on top, and the GPS puck just sits there) and it seems to work fine.
Connecting to a VHF. The connection was straightforward - I connected the NMEA0183 outputs to the VHF GPS inputs. So far so good ... but no signal received by the VHF. An hour of Googling and messing about ... you have to set the plotter up so that it’s NMEA GPS outputs are enabled. The Onwa manual (available online ) tells you how to do it. Then you need to set the baud rate too (for my unit, it needed setting to 4800.) So, when these two steps were completed, it then worked fine.
As this isn’t clear from the either the GPS instructions or in the VHF manual, hopefully this may assist anyone else buying this unit.
One could debate all day long whether a “cheapo” Onwa unit is worthwhile or whether it’s better to shell out for a B&G or other brand. From my experience to date, the Onwa is phenomenally good value - for its price (around £550) it gives a 7” colour chart plotter, UK and Northern European charts (their own “K Charts”), Class A AIS (receiver), Class B AIS (transmitter) and it interfaces with a DSC VHF. For my purposes, it does everything I need. It includes a mounting bracket, or can be flush mounted. It included the data cable too.
Hope this may be of use to anyone installing, or thinking about buying, this unit.
No connection to Onwa or the distributors. I bought mine from Mantsbrite in Maldon, and their service was excellent - they have lots of different navigation equipment for sale and it is all rigged up so I could see the unit running, have a demo and the chap who runs it explained how to use it and how to wire it up etc. It’s increasingly rare to find sellers that you can go and speak to(!) and see things working, so well done Mantsbrite, your good service is much appreciated.
