Using the NMEA2WIFI multiplexer to test a talker!

Discussion and support for the Nmea2Wifi multiplexer - a 2-input Nmea 0183 wifi multiplexer.
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Luis Sa
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Using the NMEA2WIFI multiplexer to test a talker!

Post by Luis Sa » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:42 am

Hello,

I was asked how the Nmea2Wifi multiplexer could be used to display NMEA sentences coming from a talker device. Here is a possibility using the free Windows programme called "Packet Sender". If you google it you will find the link to download. This is a powerful program to send/receive packets in various protocols. In this case we will only be interested in UDP packets and on RECEIVING packets! There are other apps for Android and IOS that are capable of displaying received packets. However we concentrate on "Packet Sender"!

Here is a screenshot of the main window of "Packet Sender":

packets1.gif

As we are not interested in sending packets we will ignore the first 2 windows. The arriving packets will be shown on the 3rd window! But first we will go to the menu File > Settings to get this page:

packets2.gif

As the Nmea2Wifi multiplexer will transmit on UDP port 2000 (if we do not change the default transmit port) we only need to set this. We can even leave the UDP server (our PC!) disabled as we can turn it ON later on the main window. Now we need to supply power to the Nmea2Wifi multiplexer so that it creates its own Wifi Network. And we need to connect our PC to that network so that the multiplexer and the PC are in the same network. Here is a screenshot of my PC after I connected it to the Nmea2Wifi network. The multiplexer has IP 192.168.4.1 and my PC gets an IP (192.168.4.2) from the multiplexer network:

packets4.gif

So now I only have to enable the UDP server in "Packet Sender". I can do it by pressing the proper tab in the bottom bar as shown in here:

packets3.gif

and then the Nmea sentences, if present, will be shown. In this case they are "synthetic" sentences for testing purposes! If you explore "Packet Sender" you can save the received sentences into a log file.

Regards, Luis

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