Phillips AP navigator Mk5 and MK7 GPS

yoda

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My Mk5 has until recently been OK taking it's GPS feed from the Mk7 black box however my efforts to repair the aerial lead seem to have been in vain and I can no longer get the units to work. It seems that the Mk 7 feeds an NMEA signal to the Mk5 display unit. Has anybody managed to feed the MK5 with data from an alternative source? The MK5 display is a lovely size for those of us with poor eye sight and it always seems a shame to throw something like this away. TVM

Yoda
 
I tried to find manuals for these units on Google, but only found the Mk 8 & 9. There was a hint in those that the NMEA had just changed from v2.0 from v1.5 on earlier models. I hope that will help someone who is au fait with the standards to advise you, but I believe it was a change in the voltages of the signals. If I were you, I'd borrow a simple GPS from someone who's over-wintering ashore and try it - if it doesn't work immediately, I'm sure someone here can suggest how to buffer the signal.

Rob.
 
Could be something in what you say there Rob.

My radar is an oldish Raytheon CRT type. There is an input for a Loran Lat/Long on the back using a BNC connector.

When I tried to get the display working from my Navman plotter, all that came up was a row of ? marks.

When I took the signal from my AP-Philips Mk6 GPS (BIG NUMBERS DISPLAY), the correct Lat/Long was displayed.

Both were outputting NMEA, but obviously, the Navman was a newer version. So maybe a more modern GPS/Plotter would not give the same NMEA output to an older display.
 
I tried to find manuals for these units on Google, but only found the Mk 8 & 9. There was a hint in those that the NMEA had just changed from v2.0 from v1.5 on earlier models. I hope that will help someone who is au fait with the standards to advise you, but I believe it was a change in the voltages of the signals. If I were you, I'd borrow a simple GPS from someone who's over-wintering ashore and try it - if it doesn't work immediately, I'm sure someone here can suggest how to buffer the signal.

Rob.

Thanks for that Rob, I can have a play with the output from my handheld to see what happens.

Yoda
 
AP Mk4/5 GPS black-box

The problem is that Philips/AP uses propretary sentenses for the AP mk5.
Standard NMEA GPS-sentences starts with the header $GPxxx, where xxx is the
type. EX $GPGLL,59.0977,N,01801.6884,E*63 is the sentence for my GPS position.
In the AP-blackbox-GPS the $GPxxx, sentences are mixed with sentences named $PMVXG,yyy, where yyy is a sentencenumber ex 001 for position.
If your problem is the antenna only you can use an antenna from Garmin or som other brand, they are all made for the same frekvency, but check that the box delivers 5 volts to power up the amplifier built into the antenna. Powerfailure can be your problem thus the signal is werry weak when the amp is not working.

Good Luck
 
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