Vesper Marine AIS

[MFIshtar]

I have just purchased a Watchmate Vision (not yet installed).
Due to some bungling by a large US courier firm and Australian Customs I was charged duty twice.
The people at Vesper Marine noted this, contacted me and have bent over backwards to rectify the situation.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank them and in particular Deirdre for their wonderful customer service a rare and valuable commodity in today's commercial world.

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by craigrowell

I am concerned that the 10meter antenna cable may be a couple of meters short. I am also concerned about the registration. I am in California and will be traveling to Europe with the new equipment...Advice?

Sorry for the delayed reply... I've been on a family vacation and trying to stay disconnected

We have available a 10m GPS antenna extension cable if that might do the trick for you. Please don't cut off or otherwise splice the antenna cable that comes with the antenna. Rather, you can extend it by using SMA(F) to SMA(F) joiner and another cable. That's what our extension kit includes.

You need an MMSI number assigned to your boat. That comes from the country of registry. If your boat is a US boat then you get that from the FCC and it is a part of your Ship Station License. You can file form 605 electronically. See http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/ind...%20a%20License

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by trantor12020

Managed to get a returned uniut of Raymarine E85001 interface box from a shop in Lymington, UK. It interface the SeaTalk from SPX-5 Course Computer to the nmea input of XB8000. HDG, DPT, AWA and AWS all working!

WatchMate Android - I see the Alarm features all grey out. Is it supported?

Ken

Excellent and glad to hear it's all working well for you. Alarms are actually all done within WatchMate Vision and not within our apps themselves. As a result, our apps require a Vision for alarming.

[sailjumanji]

Jeff, I submitted a technical request for this, but I thought I would see if you are on here instead. I just hooked up an XB8000, the SP160 antenna splitter, and a new Icom 506 VHF radio. I get green lights on both the AIS and the splitter. I also see momentary AIS transmit light lit up on the splitter. However I cannot receive any of the weather channels on the VHF, and when I press to transmit I do not get any transmit light on the splitter. When I hook up the antenna wire direct to the VHF, I get weather channels. Not sure about VHF traffic with direct antenna hookup because I am far from marine traffic. I will request some radio checks tomorrow.

I have swapped the AIS patch antenna for the VHF patch antenna and same problem exists. Overall, I would say my new antenna splitter is not working. Turning the antenna splitter off does not change anything. Please let me know what to do next. I purchased all of the Vesper gear from Defender about six weeks ago, and am just now getting around to hookup.

[trantor12020]

Originally Posted by sailjumanji

Jeff, I submitted a technical request for this, but I thought I would see if you are on here instead. I just hooked up an XB8000, the SP160 antenna splitter, and a new Icom 506 VHF radio. I get green lights on both the AIS and the splitter. I also see momentary AIS transmit light lit up on the splitter. However I cannot receive any of the weather channels on the VHF, and when I press to transmit I do not get any transmit light on the splitter. When I hook up the antenna wire direct to the VHF, I get weather channels. Not sure about VHF traffic with direct antenna hookup because I am far from marine traffic. I will request some radio checks tomorrow.

I have swapped the AIS patch antenna for the VHF patch antenna and same problem exists. Overall, I would say my new antenna splitter is not working. Turning the antenna splitter off does not change anything. Please let me know what to do next. I purchased all of the Vesper gear from Defender about six weeks ago, and am just now getting around to hookup.

Now that you mention it, my vhf transmission is very poor, as reported by another sailboat 400-500 mtr away since I fitted the SP160 to my XB8000 and SH2150 vhf.
So SP160 could be a problem. VSWR is 6 with SP160 connected.

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by sailjumanji

Jeff, I submitted a technical request for this, but I thought I would see if you are on here instead. I just hooked up an XB8000, the SP160 antenna splitter, and a new Icom 506 VHF radio. I get green lights on both the AIS and the splitter. I also see momentary AIS transmit light lit up on the splitter. However I cannot receive any of the weather channels on the VHF, and when I press to transmit I do not get any transmit light on the splitter.

I just replied to your support ticket and gave you some troubleshooting suggestions there. Since support tickets are tracked and monitored by our support techs it's better to take it there as I'm not always around.

In any case, for anyone else with this situation... check the cable between the VHF and splitter. If the splitter isn't showing the VHF TX then it means it isn't detecting transmit power coming from the splitter. Turning off the splitter causes the ANT and VHF ports to be connected in power-fail mode. In this mode there is a direct connection between the VHF port and the antenna.

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by trantor12020

Now that you mention it, my vhf transmission is very poor, as reported by another sailboat 400-500 mtr away since I fitted the SP160 to my XB8000 and SH2150 vhf.
So SP160 could be a problem. VSWR is 6 with SP160 connected.

High VSWR is typically a problem with the antenna matching or cable and rarely a problem caused by the SP160. Here's some troubleshooting you can do... when you key the mic on the VHF, does the splitter VHF TX indicator come on? When the AIS transmits does the AIS TX indicator come on? When you key the mic on the VHF (when it is on high power) does the CHECK ANT indicator come on?

The VHF TX and AIS TX are indicators that show that the splitter is detecting transmit power from that port. It's a reasonable verification of the cable going from the VHF or AIS to the splitter. The CHECK ANT indicator says that the splitter is detecting high return power from the antenna port. If that comes on then it's an indication there maybe an antenna mismatch or failure or the cable/connectors between the splitter and antenna.

[trantor12020]

Jeff, thanks for the troubleshooting tip. I'll check and revert.

Ken

[sailjumanji]

Jeff did respond direct via the support line, so I will take it off the forum. But just for reference, the short antenna cable running to the ais works fine and the splitter light works when the ais is transmitting. When I use that working cable on the vhf side, I do not get a transmit light, and still no weather channels on vhf. I don't get the antenna error light.

[sailjumanji]

It appears that with all of the testing, I have narrowed it down to a bad splitter. I hope that is the case. But I just wanted to say that Vesper (Jeff) support has been stellar on this. I got an email from him early this morning thanking me for doing all of the testing (we also pulled out handheld VHF's and checked reception and transmit on all kinds of configurations) to try to pinpoint the problem, and they would replace the unit. An hour or so later got an email from their US distributor saying he needed an address to ship the replacement, and an RMA for me to send them the defective one. Hopefully this resolves my problem.

Originally Posted by sailjumanji

Jeff did respond direct via the support line, so I will take it off the forum. But just for reference, the short antenna cable running to the ais works fine and the splitter light works when the ais is transmitting. When I use that working cable on the vhf side, I do not get a transmit light, and still no weather channels on vhf. I don't get the antenna error light.

[kaerou]

Originally Posted by MFIshtar

I have just purchased a Watchmate Vision (not yet installed).
Due to some bungling by a large US courier firm and Australian Customs I was charged duty twice.
The people at Vesper Marine noted this, contacted me and have bent over backwards to rectify the situation.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank them and in particular Deirdre for their wonderful customer service a rare and valuable commodity in today's commercial world.

I also had to deal with Verper Marine while in Portugal, and I'll second you Sailjuanji, to congratulate their service. It is more than just service, it's also friendship and warm mail exchange. Pure Kiwis, they are :-)

[sailjumanji]

Yep, I got my replacement splitter yesterday. (Lets see, that would be four days from first email to having replacement in hand.) And an email earlier in the morning saying "it turns out the VHF loom was not connected to the circuit board. No wonder you were not getting any reception."

Which I really appreciated knowing it was not something stupid that I was doing, as apparently the failure rate of their splitters is somewhere around zero.

Now if I can just figure out some way to have Zeus2 trigger a DSC call thru the Vesper XB8000, since apparently my new Icom 506 VHF doesn't recognize/receive the N2K PGN to do this.

Originally Posted by kaerou

I also had to deal with Verper Marine while in Portugal, and I'll second you Sailjuanji, to congratulate their service. It is more than just service, it's also friendship and warm mail exchange. Pure Kiwis, they are :-)

[trantor12020]

I don't see the VSWR number. Am I missing something here?

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by trantor12020

I don't see the VSWR number. Am I missing something here?

It doesn't display an actual number, rather it's a bar graph where if there is only one or two green segments then it's good. The example in your photo is typically seen when there's no antenna attached or a short in the cable.

[trantor12020]

Originally Posted by jeffrobbins

It doesn't display an actual number, rather it's a bar graph where if there is only one or two green segments then it's good. The example in your photo is typically seen when there's no antenna attached or a short in the cable.

Oh sharks! My system is actually completely wired up. Last I did was to re-connect the antenna cable at mast top just to be sure it is fully home and tighten. Ok back to boat to hunt for gremlin.