OpenCPN not working with Actisense NGT-1

[J805]

Hi All,


I'm converting a boat over to OpenCPN from Nobeltec Odyssey. I cannot for the life of me get their Actisense NGT-1 AIS device working. It works fine when I open up Odyssey but I cannot seem to get it going no matter how I configure the connection in OpenCPN. What am I doing wrong here? Are there special settings for it? In Nobeltec it shows up as a NMEA 2000 connection.


Thanks

[Hakan]

J805..
First:
OCPN can't handle NMEA 2000 strings but only NMEA 0183.
Second:
The Actisense NGT-1 is only for NMEA 2000 strings.
The Actisense NGW-1 for example can convert some strings from NMEA 2000 to NMEA 0183 and can thus be used to convert data into OCPN. There are various options of the NGW-1 for different purposes.

If you only want to get AIS strings into OCPN it may be your AIS receiver/transponder has an NMEA 0183 port to us for this?

Håkan

[J805]

Originally Posted by Hakan

J805..
First:
OCPN can't handle NMEA 2000 strings but only NMEA 0183.
Second:
The Actisense NGT-1 is only for NMEA 2000 strings.
The Actisense NGW-1 for example can convert some strings from NMEA 2000 to NMEA 0183 and can thus be used to convert data into OCPN. There are various options of the NGW-1 for different purposes.

If you're only want to get AIS strings into OCPN it may be your AIS receiver/transponder has an NMEA 0183 port to us for this?

Håkan

Bummer. The NGT-1 only has one USB port coming out of it that I can use. The other side of it goes to the antenna.

Guess I have to tell them to buy the NGW-1 or no more AIS? Is there no 3rd party software that will convert the NMEA 2000 to NMEA 0183 ?

[rgleason]

I knew this problem immediately. It happened last year. OpenCPN can read the high baud of Nmea 2000 but the protocol is entirely different and the nmea windows show this different coding.


The solution for us was to purchase the correct Artisense, however we also identified the fact that the one we had there could be reprogrammed to be for nmea0183. I think you should look into that option.

[skipperearly]

use openplotter and configure the NGT-1 data which are required. I use primarily wind and ais data.

[teppokurki]

Originally Posted by J805

I cannot for the life of me get their Actisense NGT-1 AIS device working.

There is a bit of confusion here.

NGT-1 is a product by Actisense, not Nobeltec.

NGT-1 provides read and write access to your NMEA2000 bus - it is not an AIS device. Apparently you have AIS data in your NMEA2000 network, because you say it is working with Nobeltec. Or did you mean all your data, like position speed depth and wind, is working?

You probably want access to all your NMEA2000 in OCN, not just ais? To get there you need to convert the data to NMEA0183. You can do that with OpenPlotter that includes Signal K server, which allows you to convert the NMEA200 data to NMEA183 via Signal K format. Then you can connect OCN to this feed.

If you just want ais the same setup applies.

The conversions are not perfect yet and do not include everything, but as this is open source software the gaps can be covered over time, especially when there is somebody with a real world case and the associated data.

[rgleason]

Teppo, No confusion here. There is a jumper or dip sw option to change the NGT-1 into an NGW-1 (see Hakan's reply), I saw it in the manual last year. I thought the yard electronics guy was going to go that route, but he purchased an NGW-1 instead (not my boat, we were just prepping for a race).

By the way, the NGW-1 version worked like a charm, all ships data came to OpenCPN with no problems. It was as if we had all the data on the Garmin chartplotter up at the helm. Once the proper driver was loaded to connect to the NGW-1, starting Opencpn up each time found the driver and the data became available. This ship also had a satphone with data available (10gb for the month) so we downloaded weather & grib very sparingly.

You probably want access to all your NMEA2000 in OCN, not just ais? To get there you need to convert the data to NMEA0183. You can do that with OpenPlotter that includes Signal K server, which allows you to convert the NMEA200 data to NMEA183 via Signal K format. Then you can connect OCN to this feed.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by teppokurki

There is a bit of confusion here.

You probably want access to all your NMEA2000 in OCN, not just ais? To get there you need to convert the data to NMEA0183. You can do that with OpenPlotter that includes Signal K server, which allows you to convert the NMEA200 data to NMEA183 via Signal K format. Then you can connect OCN to this feed.

There certainly is a lot of confusion here

I believe the OP would be much better of simply replacing the NGT-1 with a NGW device.

No offence to anybody but the OPs posting suggests a rudimentary knowledge of NMEA networking and device function, so lets not confuse them with Openplotter, which I use, but realistically must remain the domain of the geeks among us.

Just buy a NGW-1 AIS USB version

P.S. the functionality of all NGW-1 versions can all be configured in any NGW via software but if you don't want to fiddle with that by the correct version.

[rgleason]

I believe the change requires a jumper and software.