Boreades
Well-Known Member
You could knock me down with a feather (times five)
(1) Lee, the technical person at Force Four HQ had agreed the RO4800 we had seems to be AIS-faulty. So across Plymouth to see Steve at Force Four at QAB. Had we got the receipt to prove we bought it from them? Er, oh dear, no. But Steve very kindly searched their till archive and found it from Aug 1st last year. No fuss about a one-year warranty, and a straight swap of the old unit for a new one. So full marks to Force Four for excellent customer service!
(2) Back to the good ship SS Boreades. Plug in the new unit, turn it on, select AIS display - it works!
(3) Wire in a FDTI USB-Serial connector to take the AIS and GPS data to a laptop. Install the FDTI driver on the laptop. It works!
Flashing green light on the FTDI plug.
(4) Download and install OpenCPN. Connections: COM7 for the FDTI virtual COM port. It works!
GPS position displayed immediately in OpenCPN.
(5) Download and install the OpenCPN plugin AIS Radar. It works!
All my neighbours are lit up like virtual christmas trees.
Wow! As a hard-bitten, much scarred, IT-person, this amount of success in one hour is pleasantly shocking.
To cap it all, my daughter has just caught ten mackeral, and my wife has just walked in with wine.
So that's supper nicely sorted.
It's a perfect day!
(1) Lee, the technical person at Force Four HQ had agreed the RO4800 we had seems to be AIS-faulty. So across Plymouth to see Steve at Force Four at QAB. Had we got the receipt to prove we bought it from them? Er, oh dear, no. But Steve very kindly searched their till archive and found it from Aug 1st last year. No fuss about a one-year warranty, and a straight swap of the old unit for a new one. So full marks to Force Four for excellent customer service!
(2) Back to the good ship SS Boreades. Plug in the new unit, turn it on, select AIS display - it works!
(3) Wire in a FDTI USB-Serial connector to take the AIS and GPS data to a laptop. Install the FDTI driver on the laptop. It works!
Flashing green light on the FTDI plug.
(4) Download and install OpenCPN. Connections: COM7 for the FDTI virtual COM port. It works!
GPS position displayed immediately in OpenCPN.
(5) Download and install the OpenCPN plugin AIS Radar. It works!
All my neighbours are lit up like virtual christmas trees.
Wow! As a hard-bitten, much scarred, IT-person, this amount of success in one hour is pleasantly shocking.
To cap it all, my daughter has just caught ten mackeral, and my wife has just walked in with wine.
So that's supper nicely sorted.
It's a perfect day!