Native Virtual Com Port integration with OpenCPN

[Peter McNamara]

Today I successfully routed AIS signal laden sound from a Discriminator tap applied to my aged Uniden VHF marine radio to the sound card on my Windows 7/64bit Notebook and read by AISMon interpreted as valid AIS data (as verified in the log file). I am an IT professional with 25 years experience yet the recommended process described for creating a virtual com port via VSPE so that OpenCPN can receive this data from has eluded me despite the careful instructions.

Is anyone in the OpenCPN development community working on a native method for adding this functionality as an authorised addon to OpenCPN to avoid all the painful stuff with 3rd party software packages? There has to be an easier more elegant way...

Cheers

Peter Mc