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From: gerankin (no email)
Date: Mon May 01 2006 - 19:42:01 EDT
Rob Brueckner writes: So I naturally asked " what's wrong, can they be
repaired". I was told "no, the electronics is wearing out" which is about as
crazy an answer as I have heard. Anyway, the tech suggested a new antenna
from anybody, one being the "125"Raymarine model. I asked how I connect
another antenna.."just cut the cables and use the old connector..they are
color coded the same..just match colors"... Is that true???
The tech is glossing over a lot. It depends upon whether you are connecting
the GPS antenna using seatalk or NMEA. It is likely that you are connected
via Seatalk, and the easiest thing to do would be to buy the RayStar GPS
which does work a lot better than the old unit. The problem is that only
Raymarine antennas support Seatalk. Although a tempting approach, I
probably wouldn't splice like he suggests. I would rewire the unit back to
the instrument panel or the nearest Seatalk junction in a weatherproof area.
You might be able to use the old cable as a fish tape to pull the new wires
through the mast, simply cut it at the antenna and securely attach the new
one to it. My approach was to mount the Raystar on the railing and leave
the old antenna on the mast "as a backup."
If you want to use non Raymarine equipment (gee, why would you want to do
that? :) ) then it will not be as simple as the tech says. You will have
to match the "NMEA out" from the antenna to the "NMEA in" on the Raymarine
unit and the color coding will most likely not match. It isn't hard to
figure out; the Raymarine manual has a section breaking out the wire colors.
Look for something like "Channel 1 NMEA data input" in the "System
Connections" section of the manual (generally it is on the power cable
bundle.) Manuals are online at www.raymarine.com. The hard part is that
the installer probably cut off those wires if they used seatalk, so you have
to carefully cut the insulation on the bundle, fish out the wires, and then
slice a wire to them. (I had to figure this out when the unit failed on a
trip, it is kind of fun running a $9000 plotter/radar from a $300 Lowrance
GPS.)
The electronics haven't worn out, since so many of us are having problems it
is likely a software or firmware bug involving date/time. You may be out of
luck on the other unit as well if they use the same GPS chip set. I think
this will become a pretty large issue soon, and it will probably get
mentioned a lot by people who like traditional navigation. I did update my
Raynav unit to the last release of software from Raymarine and it did not
help.
George Rankin
Oyster Catcher
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