OpenCPN Radar Overlay PlugIn

[Tristan]

FYI
I've found the answer for my question - just if anybody needs it.

Standard colouring on RJ 45
1 White/Orange
2 Orange
3 White/Green
4 Blue
5 White/Blue
6 Green
7 White/Brown
8 Brown

Simrad 5 pin connector
1 Blue
2 Blue /White
3 Orange
4 Orange/ white

I didn't test it yet. I got it from the internet search.

[Neptune's Gear]

Hi Hakan, no, you're not alone! I've just been a bit busy this week! I'll test your target enhancements tomorrow and let you know...
Tristan, there are a couple of standards for Ethernet cable - the one you have listed above is T568B there is also an A version, either is fine.
Jonasaberg, no problem, 3G and 4G radars work fine with the br24 plugin. I use a 3G one.
There is no difference between international versions that I'm aware of. The RI10 is NOT required - you can go direct to a the PC, or to a hub. If you look back in the thread a bit you will find my cabling instructions for this..
Cheers
Matt

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Neptune's Gear]

Hi Hakan,
OK, gave up work and went down to boat - just at my marina, sorry.
I tried the br24 plugin, here are the results



That is the version 108 plugin without enhancement

below is your version



As you can see, not much difference!!

Matt

[RobbieW]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Robbie...
I haven't test Garmin but I can comment the BR24 part which seems much easier.
The BR24 UDP messaging don't care much about IP addresses but more of different ports for single tasks like scan data and commands. A consequence of that is when I use a direct wire connection to the PC the radar can have one IP segment like 169.254.129.235 and the PC another like 172.16.1.1. But when connected via a router the router itself seems more strict. For BR24 that's not a problem since it's set up to accept a DHCP distribution of IP addresses and use whatever it gets. When I used a router both the BR24 and the PCs where in the 192.168.x.x segment.
The br24radar_pi plugin don't care much about IP addresses either. It looks for specific ports messages coming from something having a IP-type address (0.0.0.0)

In your Garmin case you could maybe try to set the router to use addresses in the 172.16.1.x segment instead?
Håkan

Håkan,
Thanks for the reply. I may have the opportunity to replace my radar, insurance claim, and would like to integrate it with my current setup. You, and the other BR24 user/contributors, have helped shift my thinking toward the BR24 interface rather than gradar, despite its 'alpha' designation.

Although none of the suppliers are explicitly designing for an 'open' interface it seems the BR24 IP design is easier to integrate than the Garmin design. I dont especially want to change my network design to integrate one component, it might be possible to 'double alias' the 172 address so that it passes through my router and is recognised on the PC - then again it might not

Robbie

[Neptune's Gear]

Robbie, The radar is UDP, not TCP. UDP is a broadcast - It does not need an IP address to work, so the address of your subnet is irrelevant. Do you really mean a router, or a Hub/switch...

[Neptune's Gear]

Hakan, I forgot to say that I had to change the scaling factor from 1 to 7 with the enhanced target DLL. Whats with that???
Matt

[Hakan]

Hi all...
Many thanks for all social feedback. Nice to see the world wasn't empty.
There are some posts to read more careful and I may response to. But first:

Matt or anyone else for that matter with a BR24 scanner in live:
Since Dave C seems occupied I tried to figure out the range failures and may have found some issues. There's a windows binary for the plugin attached where the following changes are included:

What I’ve done so far.

• The range issue I think I’ve partly solved for the BR24 version of the scanner. The 4G part I haven’t touched but it seems questionable as well. First I corrected the returned range value. Due to the paper it should be multiplied by 10 and divided by the square root of 2. Then I changed the range value to transmit to the scanner. I didn’t found anything wrong with the method you’ve used but yet the range was returned to high. My changes here are not a solution but an adaptation to reality. The value sent was returned ~1.76 times higher?? The simple and not so nice patch was to divide the data to be sent by the same value
• The interference rejection was sent using a wrong command. Should be 0xc1. The function should now be functional.
  
• I’ve added the function “Target boost”. Its function has to be evaluated and can be deleted if not usable. I’m not sure how it works. It may be just an increased gain factor in auto mode?
• Some UI changes to the “Radar Control” like slider labels etc.
• I’ve manually blocked most of the log file messages. Next step is to add them to the “Verbose” option in the ini-file or include it in the preferences dialog box?

Two file attached. The Windows binary a dll and a Git diff for the range changes.
I don't think I've change any operation system dependent code but if anyone may want to build for Linux or Mac I can make a Diff for all my changes. Please ask.

Save the desired file and discard the .pdf extension.
Based on my own experience: Please remember to rename or move the original br24radar_pi.dll if you copy this .dll to the plugins directory.

Thanks Håkan

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Hakan, I forgot to say that I had to change the scaling factor from 1 to 7 with the enhanced target DLL. Whats with that???
Matt

Matt...
Yes that was my experience as well. But also before my change with the "Target Boost". Try my new changes and you should be able have the range factor set to "1".
Håkan

[RobbieW]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Robbie, The radar is UDP, not TCP. UDP is a broadcast - It does not need an IP address to work, so the address of your subnet is irrelevant. Do you really mean a router, or a Hub/switch...

Matt, I really mean a router - I have a Tomato based router supplying WiFi for the boat which already distributes GPS and AIS data as well as the normal internet stuff. I'd like it to do the same for RADAR data. What I'm reading is that the gradar plugin will exit if it cant see an address in the right range, irrespective of the protocol being used.

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by RobbieW

.......What I'm reading is that the gradar plugin will exit if it cant see an address in the right range, irrespective of the protocol being used.

Robbie...
Yes that's most likely for the gradar_pi plugin but not for the br24radar_pi.
These two radar types are different in how they connect to the network.
If you connect the BR24 direct in to the PC and the PC has some kind of IP address the windows "network connections" will reply "Unknown network" "No Internet". Then it's ready to go.

Using a router with DHCP will be straight forward if you have your PC to accept DHCP. Then you'll just have to connect the cabling and go. And I'm still talking solely about the BR24 scanner. (Not the Garmin and gradar.)
Håkan

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Hi Hakan,
.......As you can see, not much difference!!
Matt

Yes that's my experience as well. It may be that in open sea the function can help to discover single week targets??? If there is some intelligent coding inside the scanner to especially detect moving echoes I don't know. We've to test? I found no further documentation for the function.
Håkan

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by jonasaberg

Håkan and others,.......
Has anyone investigated the situation regarding upgrades of the radar software? I don't fully understand whether there is a firmware in the radar dome itself or what is referred to in this document....

Jonas...
What I understand all is about updating the viewers. That's what we are doing with the br24radar_pi plugin?

......Also, I wanted to investigate if there is a difference between radar domes sold om different markets. Example, will there be functional differences on domes sold in the US vs Europe? I checked this site for BR24:...........

I think Matt touched this and I've the same opinion. What's relevant for us using OCPN instead of a navigator or any other viewer is the latter part in the manual. The US---bit. We need only to connect power and IP-net wires.

Does it mean that both work with the BR24 plug-in? Has anyone tried a 3G instead of a BR24?

I think it's two names for the same thing??

So the common display for BR24, 3G and 4G is the Lowrance HDS. Does it mean that the domes all share the same communication specification

Now we have OCPN and br24radar_pi instead of HDS. Without having tested the G4 my opinion is that thay share a lot of communication code but not all. If I look into the br24radar_pi code it's a lot prepared for the G4 as well. Looking back in this thread I get the feeling it's tested. Matt may know and Dave C for sure.

Håkan

[Neptune's Gear]

Hi Hakan, ok, thanks for the new dll - i'll give it a try, but probably be a few days. We are expecting a cyclone from late tonight, so it's not really boating weather!
Attached is the DLL that I've been using the most so far. Not sure that you have this one - it's Dave C's latest, with the guard zones. Guard zones are important to me - can you copy that bit into your dll?

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

...Attached is the DLL that I've been using the most so far. Not sure that you have this one - it's Dave C's latest, with the guard zones. Guard zones are important to me - can you copy that bit into your dll?

Matt...
Thanks I'll a look at that dll's function - nice. But -no - I can't see the code from a dll. But I've had a nice mail contact with Dave C and forwarded my changes to him so I think they are soon combined to a new version. He's been busy for while but may have the time next week for some coding.

Take care with the cyclone and staying safe in harbour seems like a good idea.
Håkan

[cowelld]

WOW,
That's a lot of traffic since I've visited the Forum. I should set up the email. To clear some of the issues I'm afraid Hakan and Matt have been using two different versions of the Plug-in. In the beginning I plagiarized Dave R's Gradar to create the BR24 which worked OK. Kees Verruijt then modified it significantly to accomodate the 3G/4G units due to their dual-range capabilities. That's the version on GitHub/CANBOAT/BR24RADAR_PI which Hakan has been using. Unfortunately I haven't been able to contact Kees about my update work which I haven't published but which mostly deals with adding Alarm Zones and addressing other user issues. Matt and another cruiser have been working as my testers since they have the 3G/4G scanners and so they have MY version. I have just forwarded a copy to Hakan so he can check it against his work and we can all be on the same page. My apologies to all for being derelict in watching this forum.
I try to use both Linux and Windows in XP and 7 versions to make sure the plug-in compiles against the current OpenCPN. SO FAR SO GOOD. I've been testing both programs for the new versions of wxWidgets and OpenCPN libraries and have come up with some issues but since those haven't been authorized it's of no consequence. Lastly I've been building a complete Linux version running on an ARM v7 processor which has already been done for the Android and Notebook versions but then this is for fun.
Should we split off from this Thread and create a seperate "BR24G Plug-in" for the Lowrance/Simrad/B&G units. It's sometimes confusing, expecially since I'm also Dave.

Thanks,
DAVE COWELL