VHF/AIS

[Just us]

I am looking at purchasing the B&G V50 or the Simrad RS35 (I believe they are the exact same unit?). A few questions:
Has anyone had any experience connecting these units to a Raymarine chart plotter? If so, any problems?
Does the gps work below deck and or will it use the Gps from the chart plotter?
Also, am I missing something that makes this unit $300 less than the Ramarine Ray70?



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[CaptTom]

I just installed my B&G V50 this weekend. So far I like it, but no real-world experience yet.

Mine accepts NMEA2000 data from a Garmin MFD and NMEA0183 from an old Navman chartplotter. No problems, in that it can receive time and position data from either source. I like that I can go into the menu and pick which source to use. Modern MFDs should also be able to display AIS target information from the V50, if connected. I haven't tested that by turning off my Vesper AIS receiver letting the V50 be the sole source for AIS data.

The radio doesn't have a built-in GPS; it needs a NMEA connection for that. So it'll work fine anywhere, as long as you connect it to something that's putting out position data.

So far I've found the controls and menu system fairly easy to use, and the manual helpful. There are a lot of options, so I won't say it's simple. It did alarm once when it thought my Vesper AIS signal was another boat in the process of colliding with mine, despite having the same MMSI number. But then it stopped doing that so I don't know if it was a fluke, or if it'll do that again.

I've found that Raymarine stuff is at the high end of the price range, all else being equal. They used to have a great reputation for quality and service, but I don't know if that's still true.

[Just us]

Thank you for the information. If you turn off your vesper AIS and allow the V50 to send AIS data to your MFD, please let me know how that worked. But like you said, it should work fine. Defender has a special that includes a wireless handset, so I am looking at that as well.
I assume not having the integrated GPS means that the unit it is getting position data from needs to be on. I always like back up units incase one fails, so that seems like a slight down side. Is there a connection for an external gps antenna? I am considering moving my old chart plotter into the nav station and running an external gps. My understanding is that you can split a GPS antennas wires to be used on 2 devices?? Curious about your thoughts on that


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[CaptTom]

I'll let you know when I run that test. I bought the wireless handset; I had one on my old radio and found it very useful.

I looked in the manual, and there's no dedicated GPS antenna port. Just NMEA 0183 In or NMEA 2000. Any chartplotter should be able to feed one or both.

I did a quick search for a GPS antenna that put out NMEA 0183, but the prices surprised me. $160+, when you can buy a USB GPS antenna for $35! Maybe some more digging would turn up something a little closer to reality. You'd be better off with a cheap hand-held GPS that had a plug for NMEA 0183 out, and use that as the antenna.

As for splitting a GPS antenna signal, a typical NMEA 0183 talker can have multiple listeners, so if it had NMEA output you'd be fine. I doubt a proprietary format would work.

All this got me thinking. If you don't already have a chartplotter, then I'm not sure the NMEA 2000 AIS radio is your highest priority. It made sense for me because I already have both NMEA 0183 and 2000 connections available.

Having position info available to the radio is critical for safety. When you push the distress button, you want to be involved in a "rescue", not a "search and rescue". A lot of VHF units today come with built-in GPS receivers.

[alctel]

I bought a Simrad RS35 and the NMEA2000 port crapped out on me after two weeks.

Simrad technical support were a massive pain to get hold off (the number on the website gives an 'out of service' message) and I had to send it back in to them and pay for shipping myself. So not super impressed. The scan function also seemed to be buggy and would randomly stop on a channel, and the whole thing would sometimes just reset.

I haven't received it back yet, hopefully it'll be all fixed.

[TropicalSeattle]

I have an RS35. It is hooked up to NMEA 2000, and gets GPS positioning from that, just fine. However, my position source is the built in GPS on the chart plotter and thus if the chart plotter is not on, then no useful DSC call position data is transmitted.

To avoid this problem, I tried to use my external GPS antenna which is direct wired to my AIS transmitter as a source but that did not work at all. Turns out I have an old firmware on the RS35, which cannot be field upgraded. So I had to ship the radio to simrad. Tech support has been very good so far, they got back to me when they said they would, knew their product, picked up the phone the first time. Cross your fingers. You want firmware 1.112, see the rs35 support page for details.


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[Just us]

Thank you all for the Information. I am replacing all my electronic systems. The boat was last updated in the early 90s, had everything I needed, but those systems all seem to have met their life expectancy and are failing simultaneously. So I am replacing with raymarine a98 chart plotter, raymarine wind/depth/speed, raymarine autopilot brain and my current icom vhf does not have a distress feature and since i am replacing I figured I should get ais as well. The raymarine a98 has NMEA 0183 and 2000 so should integrate with the B&G V50 and I liked the price and the features. Would prefer icom for VHF based on prior experience, but those units are almost twice as much.

I am also wondering why since the new chart plotter has wifi I need to run any cables to it as opposed to attaching all to a router which then sends the data wirelessly to the chart plotter. I assume I am missing something here, but not sure what?

Lastly, can anyone confirm that the B&G V50 and the Simrad rs35 are in fact the same exact unit?

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Just us

Thank you for the information. If you turn off your vesper AIS and allow the V50 to send AIS data to your MFD, please let me know how that worked.

Yes, with the Vesper AIS turned off, the V50 fed AIS data through the NMEA 2000 network and the Garmin MFD displayed it just fine.

Originally Posted by Just us

can anyone confirm that the B&G V50 and the Simrad rs35 are in fact the same exact unit?

Yes, when I was looking at these two I compared the two manuals side-by-side and they were identical (except for the name).

[Just us]

Great news on the AIS data with the vesper turned off. I went ahead and ordered it. $399 including the handheld wireless unit seemed like a good deal. I will let you know once I get it installed and hooked up how it works with the raymarine a98.
Thanks for all the info!


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[charliemcvey]

I recently installed the V50 a Garmin 741xs and nmea. The chart plotter must be on for the V50 to display position and AIS. I am quite pleased with the ease of installations. I have not tried the hand held yet.


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[Just us]

Ok, so I finally installed the B&G V50 VHF/AIS and connected it via NMEA 2000 to my seatalk network that includes an external GPS antenna that shows to be working (green light flashing). VHF reads no gps signal. I have not connected the chart plotter yet, but since using an external GPS as part of the network not sure why that would matter?

In the menu options under "GPS source" it shows NMEA 0183 and then unknown. It will not let me select unknown. I have nothing connected to NMEA 0183 port. Thoughts??

Thanks!!

[TropicalSeattle]

Originally Posted by Just us

Ok, so I finally installed the B&G V50 VHF/AIS and connected it via NMEA 2000 to my seatalk network that includes an external GPS antenna that shows to be working (green light flashing). VHF reads no gps signal. I have not connected the chart plotter yet, but since using an external GPS as part of the network not sure why that would matter?



In the menu options under "GPS source" it shows NMEA 0183 and then unknown. It will not let me select unknown. I have nothing connected to NMEA 0183 port. Thoughts??



Thanks!!

This is very similar to my problem described above, except my electronics are all simrad. Look at the firmware version of your radio (it displays briefly when you turn it on). If it is less than 1.112, then I highly recommend that you look into updating it (see their support page for details). This firmware fixes exactly this kind of problem (having the radio receiving position reports from more types of external GPS). I have updated mine but did not have a chance to reinstall the radio to test it yet.


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[sailjumanji]

Not sure if this helps, but I have ST60 instruments connected to a SeaTalk to SeaTalkng converter. The converter hooks up to the NMEA2000 (N2K) network with a backbone cable (not a spur). The N2K network includes spurs to an Icom 506 VHF, a Vesper AIS, a B&G ZG100 GPS, and a B&G Zeus2 chartplotter. The Icom VHF screen shows the AIS targets from Vesper, as well as the current position of my boat as per the data it receives from the ZG100 GPS.

[Badsanta]

Checkout
raymarine technical forum
you can get an answer in a day or so.

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[bstowers]

A friend of mine has a Raymarine a98 chartplotter and just bought a B&G V50 which I now get to install for him when it gets here next week. Lucky me, right?

After looking at the V50 manual, it seems to read as if I will need to connect the old NMEA 0183 port in order to get the AIS data to show up on the chartplotter. Only the GPS position is coming from the NMEA2K network, is that correct? I was really hoping all I had to do was plug the radio into the STng network that I put in when I did his chartplotter and be done with it. Can anyone tell me if the AIS data works using only the NMEA2k connection?

Speaking of the NMEA2k connection, will I have any trouble connecting it to STng? Does it come with a compatible connector for Raymarine's version of NMEA2k or will I need to splice one onto the radio's cable?

Thanks for any info.