I've been working a bit more with my
electronics in trying to get them talking together.
Here's what I have:
Garmin 942XS at
helm. Networked to
Raymarine ST60+
instruments via
SeaTalk converter, NMEA2K, works great, get all my sailing info on
Garmin
Garmin 3206 w/Radar. This was old
helm chartplotter but since radome would not have worked with 942, I moved to underneath
cockpit seat to retain
radar functionality and backup
chartplotter.
Garmin 440 chartplotter at Nav. This is a standalone chartplotter, rarely used. Has its own Garmin 17
antenna.
Icom M502-Old
VHF but still works great. I acquired MMSI yesterday and verified it does not have one programmed so I plan on doing that today.
Simrad AP11
autopilot. Finally connected to blue/gray NMEA1083 of 942XS to get
route information, XTE
My plan is to connect
Icom VHF to NMEA1083 of 942xs to enable DCS. I was going to do this by paralleling the blue/grey wires of Garmin. Good idea? I presume the output sentences of the Garmin to
Simrad and Icom would be compatible?
Is there any benefit to connecting the Garmin 440 to the 942xs? Clearly this would be connecting via NMEA1083 to the 942XS. The nav station is custom built around the 440 and I'd prefer to not hack it up, although clearly having a NMEA2k chartplotter would be ideal.
I was planning on using some direct burial CAT5 cable to run the NMEA0183 connection between Garmins. I have 1000' spool here and don't see why it wouldn't
work. Since I have 4 twisted and shielded pairs, if I was to hook things up, now is the time to connect the 440 when I have everything apart.
I would very much like to get the old 18" garmin radome to talk to my 942XS and get rid of that entire setup but it looks like the only option is a new radome. I rarely use
radar anyways so I felt like this was best option.