VHF and GPS compatibility.

[CraigBarnard]

Just completed our VHF course and plan on buying a radio at this winters boat show.
I am hoping my current GPS is compatible with the new DSC radios.
I have a Garmin GPSMAP 76 and am considering this radio, a STANDARD HORIZON
GX1600 Explorer.

According to the users manual my GPS will recieve and transmit data from another NMEA device.
Garmin proprietary Differential GPS (DGPS), NMEA 0183
versions 2.3, ASCII Text Output, RTCM SC-104 input
(version 2.0).

Can anyone veify these two units will work together? I am not much into the electronic techy stuff.

Thanks

 

[QC]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

Maybe I'll learn someting here, but I don't think GPS and VHF have anything to do with each other. I believe they can both be NMEA and still not have any interface and especially no conflicts . . .

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

Almost every Marine Radio and GPS made within the last 10-15 years will talk to each other over the NMEA 0183 protocol.
As a bare minimum the GPS will send the most current position to the Radio.
The radio needs the information so that it can transmit your position as part of any DSC Emergency Transmissions.

It is usually just a matter of splicing 2 or 3 wires together and enabling both units to Talk/Listen.
Your GPSMAP76 and GX1600 should interface with each other easily.

 

[jhebert]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

...According to the users manual my GPS will recieve and transmit data from another NMEA device....
Can anyone veify these two units will work together?

Your GPS receiver can send data to the VHF Marine Band radio transmitter via NMEA-0183. The GPS receiver sends the vessel position to the radio transmitter. The radio transmitter will then send this data using digital signal calling techniques.

You do not have any transmit capacity in your GPS; your GPS is only a GPS receiver, not a transmitter.

If you have a chart plotter, you can connect the VHF Marine Band radio receiver to the chart plotter. The VHF Marine Band receiver can receive information via digital selective calling techniques from other stations. A typical use is to show the position of a remote vessel on the chart plotter based on the data you received from the remote vessel on your radio receiver.

The NMEA-0183 standard provides that devices which follow it can be interconnected. The process is rather complicated. The NMEA-0183 standard is very non-standard when it comes to the details of the interconnection. The signals names are often different, the wire color coding is never consistent, the electrical form of the interface is often different, and the method of actual connection to the signals is completely non-standard.

I am not much into the electronic techy stuff.

You will need to become familiar with quite a bit of "techy stuff" to make these connections.

 

[QC]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

As a bare minimum the GPS will send the most current position to the Radio

Remembered that after. Thanks.

 

[CraigBarnard]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

Thanks to all that replied.
It sounds like my GPS will work with the radio i am interested in purchasing.
All I really want it to be able to do is relay my position to the radio in case I need to use the DSC distress call.

 

[NYBo]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

If you have a chart plotter, you can connect the VHF Marine Band radio receiver to the chart plotter. The VHF Marine Band receiver can receive information via digital selective calling techniques from other stations. A typical use is to show the position of a remote vessel on the chart plotter based on the data you received from the remote vessel on your radio receiver.

Lower-end setups do not have this capability.

The NMEA-0183 standard provides that devices which follow it can be interconnected. The process is rather complicated. The NMEA-0183 standard is very non-standard when it comes to the details of the interconnection. The signals names are often different, the wire color coding is never consistent, the electrical form of the interface is often different, and the method of actual connection to the signals is completely non-standard.

You will need to become familiar with quite a bit of "techy stuff" to make these connections.

Actually, despite the lack of standardization of wire colors, it's quite straightforward. Chart plotter output to radio input, and ground for the simplest setups. You may have to enter the setup menu on the chart plotter to adjust the communications parameters if the defaults don't match those of the radio (mine did). YMMV

 

[jhebert]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

Lower-end setups do not have this capability.

Actually, despite the lack of standardization of wire colors, it's quite straightforward....

The USCG reported that 90-percent of the distress calls generated by DSC radios had no position. Nine out of ten people cannot figure out the connections. The interconnection is therefore not "quite straightforward." To be "quite straightforward" you would have need nine out of ten to get it right, not the inverse. It is really an awful example of total failure of the NMEA to provide a good standard. Imagine if you had to connect your mouse to your computer using this sort of badly implemented standard.

 

[NYBo]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

The USCG reported that 90-percent of the distress calls generated by DSC radios had no position. Nine out of ten people cannot figure out the connections. The interconnection is therefore not "quite straightforward." To be "quite straightforward" you would have need nine out of ten to get it right, not the inverse. It is really an awful example of total failure of the NMEA to provide a good standard. Imagine if you had to connect your mouse to your computer using this sort of badly implemented standard.

That 90% of DSC distress calls include no position information does NOT mean that 90% of mariners cannot figure out how to make the connections. Faulty logic there. If nothing else, there aren't very many possible combinations of 2 or 3 wires. Eschew obfuscation, Mr. Hebert.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: VHF and GPS compatibility.

That 90% of DSC distress calls include no position information does NOT mean that 90% of mariners cannot figure out how to make the connections. Faulty logic there. If nothing else, there aren't very many possible combinations of 2 or 3 wires. Eschew obfuscation, Mr. Hebert.

+1
Every radio sold today is DSC.
The problem is that 90% of the operators are even simpler than their radios.

They press the DSC button even though they know they have never even attempted to connect the radio to the GPS; thinking the radio and GPS became friends and started talking to each other by virtue that they are less than 3 feet apart.
Or press the button knowing they do not even own a GPS to attach the radio to. :facepalm:

They just push the button and use wishfully thinking that the the CG will be able to find them by using the government's magic locater ray.