Vesper Watchmate Vision Reviews?

[colemj]

I'm not sure I understand your question. BTW, we save a similar setup as you.

Connect the VHF DSC output to your plotter, but not the AIS output. Connect the Vesper AIS output to your plotter.

Leave the VHF AIS as a stand alone - it is useful as a secondary device and when the plotter and Vesper is turned off. The VHF is smart enough to not show own ship on its display, but not smart enough to not send own ship over its nmea output.

Mark

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by Sandero

The antenna will be replaced as well. Any recommendations for the antenna itself?

Look for one that is well matched for both VHF (156 MHz) and AIS (162 MHz). We've got one designed specifically for sharing between the VHF and AIS but you might find others if you don't like ours.

And Mark's advice about not using the VHF's AIS output is spot on. It will drive you crazy if your own boat is always displayed on the plotter and make alarms useless.

[Pelagic]

Hi Jeff, thanks for your technical support and overview

I am emailing your info department today to order the XB-8000 Nav Station Package, which will be connected to a new Furuno Navnet Touch2 located in the cockpit, linked to a navigational Notebook inside.

In the Philippines, … technical support, quality cables and connecters are rare, so it would be a great service if Vesper could help configure and sell your package complete, as I will be replacing all Antennae cables

I am confused about the GPS’s

• I have a Furuno GP-33….
• The new Furuno Navnet Touch2 has a built in GPS and
• your XB-8000 has one.

How should they be configured to get the best redundancy and reliability from them?

[Sandero]

Antennas...

I am planning to replace the coax and the antenna... use this in the near term with the Horizon GX220 which has an AIS built in... connect AIS to ray MFD

Next step is to add the Vesper Watchmate at nav station...and their splitter... disconnect Horizon from Ray MFD... and connect the Watchmate to the cockpit mounted B&G T7. Can then output Watchmate to Ray mfd at the nav station and be able to view AIR and radar together hopefully. I plan to replace the cable with LMR400 (assuming I can get it inside the mast!)

What is the best antenna for this to be installed at the top of mast? Shakespeare, Metz or Vesper?

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Hi Jeff, thanks for your technical support and overview

I am emailing your info department today to order the XB-8000 Nav Station Package, which will be connected to a new Furuno Navnet Touch2 located in the cockpit, linked to a navigational Notebook inside.

In the Philippines, … technical support, quality cables and connecters are rare, so it would be a great service if Vesper could help configure and sell your package complete, as I will be replacing all Antennae cables

I am confused about the GPS’s

• I have a Furuno GP-33….
• The new Furuno Navnet Touch2 has a built in GPS and
• your XB-8000 has one.

How should they be configured to get the best redundancy and reliability from them?

Maybe Jeff was have a more technical response, but here is what I did.

I believe the XB-8000 is like the Vision in that it must use its own internal antenna (or you need to buy a Vesper external antenna). It won't use a NMEA2000 GPS. So just make sure the XB-8000 is is not blocked by lots of metal above (GPS works find through fiberglass).

Your list doesn't include a separate GPS module (e.g. GPA-017). If you do indeed have an external antenna, you will want to configure your other devices to prefer this device. If not, then I would play around with the Touch2 and GP-33 to see which one seems to have the best connections (i.e. connects the fastest, shows most satellites, ect). Then configure the devices to prefer that one. That would be how I would connect it!

[Sandero]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Maybe Jeff was have a more technical response, but here is what I did.

I believe the XB-8000 is like the Vision in that it must use its own internal antenna (or you need to buy a Vesper external antenna). It won't use a NMEA2000 GPS. So just make sure the XB-8000 is is not blocked by lots of metal above (GPS works find through fiberglass).

Your list doesn't include a separate GPS module (e.g. GPA-017). If you do indeed have an external antenna, you will want to configure your other devices to prefer this device. If not, then I would play around with the Touch2 and GP-33 to see which one seems to have the best connections (i.e. connects the fastest, shows most satellites, ect). Then configure the devices to prefer that one. That would be how I would connect it!

The T7 has an internal GPS and antenna (so far it's completely stand alone... but will be getting AIS input. The Ray MFD has an external GPS . antenna... and the VHF has an internal GPS and will have a new antenna at the top of the mast.

Obviously I can't have the AIS B on transmit and the GX2200 will see the boat as an AIS target... unless I can filter this out somehow...

Goal is to have the AIS in the cockpit and have the Vesper below outputing to the MFD so I can see radar and AIS at the same time as overlays...

[Sailshabby]

Since we seem to have a number of the e-whizzes here, I've got a related (albeit tangentially) question. Got the 8000, Vesper splitter, an Icom 802 SSB and an Icom 402 VHF. The latter two currently don't have a GPS input source. Can I tap off the Vesper splitter's BNC? Thx

[Sailshabby]

Also have a Garmin 740S MFD with a dedicated antenna, if that makes anything better. It also has a BNC connection in the back.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Sailshabby

Since we seem to have a number of the e-whizzes here, I've got a related (albeit tangentially) question. Got the 8000, Vesper splitter, an Icom 802 SSB and an Icom 402 VHF. The latter two currently don't have a GPS input source. Can I tap off the Vesper splitter's BNC? Thx

I don't think so, but there is an NMEA 183 output that is real easy to provide GPS data to the radios with, just two wires.

[Sailshabby]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I don't think so, but there is an NMEA 183 output that is real easy to provide GPS data to the radios with, just two wires.

From...?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Sailshabby

From...?

Two wires on the backside of the the Watchmate, sorry I don't remember, but bet there is maybe a few wires two of which would be power and ground and two that are NMEA 0183.
Download the install guide, I'm sure it's in there.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Sandero

Obviously I can't have the AIS B on transmit and the GX2200 will see the boat as an AIS target... unless I can filter this out somehow...
...

This won't be a problem. The GX2200 is smart enough to ignore the transmission from the Vesper and won't show it on its display, nor set off alarms because of it.

However, it is not smart enough to prevent sending the Vesper transmit data over its nmea output. So if you connect the 2200 to your chart plotter, you will see yourself on the plotter and set off any proximity alarms when the Vesper is transmitting.

I don't know why this can't be figured out by the manufacturers - everything is using the same mmsi, so it can't be rocket science to just not send out these data.

Mark

[jeffrobbins]

Yes, the AIS has to use it's own internal GPS receiver (regulatory requirement). But the XB-8000, XB-6000 and Vision is a full fledged NMEA 2000 GPS receiver so you can use it as the GPS source for your MFD and then you don't need another GPS antenna for the MFD. Nothing to do here... just plug the XB or Vision into your N2K bus and your MFD will see it. Then select it as the GPS source on the MFD.

In the case of Vision and XB-6000 they have an internal GPS antenna so depending on where you mount them you might not need an external GPS antenna at all.

For Sailshabby's question about providing GPS data to the Icom radios... no you can't "tap off the BNC" from the antenna. The GPS antenna is a powered device and you can't easily share it. However, the best way is to take the NMEA 0183 data from the Vesper AIS and connect it to the NMEA 0183 GPS input on your two Icom radios (in parallel) and that will work just fine. You will just need to configure your Vesper AIS to output NMEA 0183 at 4800 baud.

[jeffrobbins]

Originally Posted by colemj

However, it is not smart enough to prevent sending the Vesper transmit data over its nmea output. So if you connect the 2200 to your chart plotter, you will see yourself on the plotter and set off any proximity alarms when the Vesper is transmitting.

Yeah Mark, I don't know why they didn't deal with that. We have a special case in our AIS transponders to ensure they don't output their own transmissions in the NMEA output. You might ask... why would that happen anyway? It can happen when AIS repeaters are in use. Your AIS transmits it's message normally and doesn't output it to the plotter except as an own-station-report. But then it receives its own transmission back from the repeater in a subsequent time slot. Of course, the VHF radio knows your MMSI so it should be able to deal with both these cases.

[jeffrobbins]

Heh, this is good news... I just received this info that came from Standard Horizon tech support:

"The GX2200 will ignore the MMSI number if it sees its own over the air. A new radio will not send this number out to the chart plotter. If your radio is older than a year, then it may need a firmware update."