I would like to inform you about some problems I encountered when I was trying to get my system up and running and connect it to my Standard Horizon GX1850 GPS/E VHF.
I had bought a NMEA4WIFI-kit and a few weeks after I soldered it together I took it to my boat. The idea was to connect it to a new chart plotter + AIS transmitter that hadn’t arrived yet.
However, I did have a Standard Horizon GX1850 GPS/E VHF that had a NMEA-0183 output sending out GPS data that I had connected to my Seatec AIS receiver, Raymarine autopilot and Autohelm data repeater. This I could use for testing.
When I connected the NMEA4WIFI board to this same NMEA output of the VHF, all the other equipment continued working as before but I could not get any data into the NMEA4WIFI board. I did not see any LED’s light up nor did the debug window give any results. I had a laptop with Open CPN on it connected to the wifi, showing me if any NMEA data was coming in. No data came in until I set the board in the simulation mode and then data started to arrive. This showed me that the system I had was a functional system only without real time data coming in from the GPS of the VHF.
After having done more tests and changes (change baudrate, swop the + and - of the NMEA, connecting the - to ground etc. etc.) I contacted Luis who is the brain behind the NMEA4WIFI board, hoping that he could give me some advice. He gave me a lot of advice but unfortunately it did not help and I could not get any data into the board. We both concluded that everything was fine but it didn’t work.
After a week my new chart plotter + AIS transmitter arrived (Onwa KP-708A) and I connected it to the NMEA4WIFI board as a NMEA source and had an almost immediate success. The data from the plotter arrived, the green LED was flashing and the data was transmitted over wifi to my phone (Navionics) and laptop (OpenCPN). This was why I bought the board in the first place but I expected it to work with my Standard Horizon VHF also.
Until this day, the reason why it didn’t work with my VHF is not clear but I did not put any more effort into it as I got what I wanted. The NMEA4WIFI board is a clever little board with a lot of possibilities and I am very pleased with it. There is however something for other users of the board to keep in mind that there is some equipment around that does not seem to work fine with it and apparently I have one of them, my VHF.
Have a nice day
