how to get nmea to work?????

[PAUL]

Hi
Anyone got any idea how i can get my gpsmap450 garmin plotter, to send data to my m-tec mt 500 dsc radio. i have read both mauals and connected the right wires (or so i thought) but while the gps will get a fix and put me on the map, it will not put my lat/lon or anything else on my radio, when i switch the radio on all i'm getting is gps not connected, and rows of 9's were the lat/lon should be displayed, i know its a long shot but if anyone is using either the plotter or radio and come across this problem i would appreciate any advice.

thanks
paul


p.s
i have entered my mmsi number in to the radio

[Charlie_Thompson]

Whatever Jimmy the Nail says

[mark]

you need to go to the menu settings on the garmin, can't remember where, but there's one for setting com ports up. Garmin's have the garmin communication protocol turned on as a default and not NMEA, find that bit in the set up and switch the output to NMEA 4800, 8, n, 1

at a rough guess ( a while since I set a garmin up) its the comm tab, port 1 will be set to garmin transfer protocol not NMEA

and the wires to the dsc should be black (ground) and either the green or the blue (one is port 1 the other port 2)

belt and braces, turn both ports to NMEA, that way wether you used the green or blue wires it should work!

[davem2005]

Mark,
Does the radio send any info back to the plotter?

Both have a nmea in and out wire and we have connected both wires...is this necessary?

The only ground wire is the one for the power supply to the unit and both units are connected to a common earth (one battery setup)

Cheers
Dave

[mark]

depends on the radio and to some extent the plotter

if the 2 are compatible, the idea is that if the radio hears a DSC distress call, which obviously comes with position info, it sends this back to the plotter and the plotter then displays the position of the vessel in distress relative to your own vessel so you could steer a course to it

If you have MMSI groups set up or know the MMSI number of another boat, you can send a position request from the radio and when it gets an answer will send that to the plotter and display it on the chart


all down to the individual radio/plotter set up though as to wether it will work or not

[PAUL]

All Sorted

big thanks to mark and dave, you were both very helpfull in setting up my electrics, hope i can return the favour one day, thanks again.

Paul