Raymarine GPS

[captden]

Ok I've tried everything I can think of to get my Raymarine Raynav 300 gps to communicate with my on board computer using the nema connections with no luck at all. I have installed the up dates from Maptech, which list the raynav 300 and checked the connections a number of times, I even tried to get it to work with both windows 98 and windows xp but still no luck. My last boat had a old micrologic 150 and it worked fine. Has anybody had this problem or any suggestions that I may have over looked? I did get maptech to work using the garmin hockey puck gps but would like to get it to work with the raymarine so I can tie it into the autopilot.
Thanks
Captden

[S/V Elusive]

Den - sounds like you've probably covered all bases, but the principle problem I find with the NMEA comms, always seems to be comms SPEED. The baud rate HAS to match. Just a thought - I'm sure you've already looked at that.

[captden]

Hi Tom that is exactly what I was thinking, yesterday I tried almost all the baud speeds that are showing up in the comm. setting page. with no luck.
I did see that raymarine has an update for the gps on their website support page and I did download it but how can you install it if you can't commucate with it I'm now going through the raymarine manual to see if they have any info on them.
captden

[S/V Elusive]

Also, there are different formats of NMEA - the variations with format and baud speed can add up ... there are the current flavors of 0183 A through E, 180 and I found 180/CDX as one of the options on my older GPS unit. These have to marry with each other, along with the baud rate.

This stuff you already know, but I thought I would post it here for those that don't.

[captden]

Ya Tom I've tried them all, just went out to the boat and tried everything again. I can't believe this doesn't work, as I posted earlier at least I can get the Garmin gps to work with the maptech program. Wish I still had my old Micrologic gps that was simple to set up. I tried dealing with raymarine with this problem last year and they kept telling me if it is wired correctly it should work.
Thanks for the info
captden

[hellosailor]

Captden, I've never seen a wiring diagram for RS-232 connections (including NMEA) that couldn't be misread or wasn't mislabeled from the factory. If there was ANY custom wiring, try swapping the tx/rx leads to see if that is the problem, sometimes it really is that simple.

Also try using Hyperterminal or any other simple ASCII terminal program on your computer (there are serial port monitors and GPS 'readers' as well) just to see if you are getting data streaming from the GPS into the computer. If you see data and it is gibberish--that confirms the baud rate or parity settings are wrong. Sometimes you need to set them manually for your port on the computer.

It helps to swap out whatever you can (cord, computer, gps) with another "known good" piece to try confirming that each piece is working as expected, and then play "What's wrong with this picture" if all the pieces don't add up to a working whole.

The problem usually is something terribly simple, just poorly documented.

[AnchorageGuy]

Suggets you call call Raymarine Tech Service Monday and plan plenty of time on hold. Or get a Garmin.

[Spirit28]

Might be worth a try if all else fails......

I purchased a raystar 120 nmea gps (made by raymarine) antenna along with an autohlem chart plotter from ebay. The raystar antenna had never been used. When I wired it all up & turned on the power, it took forever to aquire a fix - thinking that because I purchased from the northern hemisphere & I am in the southern, i just thought it would take a long time to find out where it was - after 12 hours I gave up.

Not to be defeated, I borrowed a laptop from work that has commercial quality navigation software on it (Endeavour Navigator) and wired the GPS unit to the serial port - again no fix.

The Endeavour has an option where you can view the nmea data strings that are being received from the external device (i guess like hyperterminal does) and could see that while data was being recived (at least I knew the gps was powered up & sort of working as there are no leds on this model) the nmea sentence for the positional data was blank..

I thought I had done my dough & was thinking of giving up (at least I got a good chart plotter out of it) when something possesed me to take the antenna apart to see what it looks like inside.

After unscrewing it, I found an internal battery & thought it may be flat and causing the problem - after desoldering it carfully I tested with my multimeter & found it OK so I just put it back in fearing the worst. To my amazement when I connected it back up for one last try it aquired a fix in about 30 seconds!!!

I figure that it somehow needed a "reboot" to use a computer term - maybee I stuffed it up with an incorrect wiring assignment early in the piece & it just needed a restart. Anyway it worked for me & the unit is happily working with both the cart plotter & often borrowed work laptop 6 months down the track...

As I said - it may work for you if all else fails before you throw it away.