We believe that the unit has bitten the dust - or there's some problem which
makes it intermittent.

Yesterday, doing some other debugging suggested by RM, I had an instance of
it running NMEA sentences in and out, as seen in the diagnostics screen on
my plotter. However, by the time I'd gotten downstairs and into Terminal to
see if it was echoing down there, I had an alarm saying I'd lost position in
the plotter, and data stopped flowing.

It refused to reaquire satellites, something it's never done in our viewing
of it (green blink) so far, and took a long time to acquire after yet
another power cycle. However, that acquisition didn't lead to any input on
the diagnostics, nor reception in Terminal below. Sounds like it's dead...

But I'd still love to pop it onto someone else' setup for confirmation.
I've got RM's suggested replacement, a GPS105 from Digital Yacht (bought
through Bethel Marine in FL, great folks to work with), on the way for
tomorrow arrival. That will involve rewiring (well, making new connections
to) the NMEA inputs to the plotter and onward to the computer/autopilot, but
that's trivial.

L8R, y'all

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson
"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
Seeking Raymarine Raystart RS125 GPS owners in Fernandina Beach FL to
Brunswick GA

Our RS125 GPS is no longer communicating with any of our instruments. We
are trying to work through the Raymarine forum, to little effect, to
troubleshoot this device.

If you have a pole, rail, or other accessible-mount (all you have to do is
twist to remove) RS125, I'd love to be able to bring my unit to your boat
to see if it works. Replacing yours with ours and lighting up your gear
would define whether our problem was in the sensor or elsewhere - and
we've not had any success in defining as bad an "elsewhere" in our system.

If you do, and you'd be willing, drop me a line

Thanks!

L8R

Skip, still trapped in St. Marys GA

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:11:46 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

It refused to reaquire satellites, something it's never done in our viewing
of it (green blink) so far, and took a long time to acquire after yet
another power cycle. However, that acquisition didn't lead to any input on
the diagnostics, nor reception in Terminal below. Sounds like it's dead...

===

Most GPS antennas these days, the ones that look like white mushrooms,
have all of the satellite circuitry built into the antenna assembly.
They receive power through the cable and transmit NMEA183 sentences
back to the plotter. I strongly suspect that your GPS antenna unit
or the cable or the connector has failed.

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:11:46 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

It refused to reaquire satellites, something it's never done in our viewing
of it (green blink) so far, and took a long time to acquire after yet
another power cycle. However, that acquisition didn't lead to any input on
the diagnostics, nor reception in Terminal below. Sounds like it's dead...

===

Most GPS antennas these days, the ones that look like white mushrooms,
have all of the satellite circuitry built into the antenna assembly.
They receive power through the cable and transmit NMEA183 sentences
back to the plotter. I strongly suspect that your GPS antenna unit
or the cable or the connector has failed.



Copy cat!!!

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:11:46 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

We believe that the unit has bitten the dust - or there's some problem which
makes it intermittent.

Yesterday, doing some other debugging suggested by RM, I had an instance of
it running NMEA sentences in and out, as seen in the diagnostics screen on
my plotter. However, by the time I'd gotten downstairs and into Terminal to
see if it was echoing down there, I had an alarm saying I'd lost position in
the plotter, and data stopped flowing.

It refused to reaquire satellites, something it's never done in our viewing
of it (green blink) so far, and took a long time to acquire after yet
another power cycle. However, that acquisition didn't lead to any input on
the diagnostics, nor reception in Terminal below. Sounds like it's dead...

But I'd still love to pop it onto someone else' setup for confirmation.
I've got RM's suggested replacement, a GPS105 from Digital Yacht (bought
through Bethel Marine in FL, great folks to work with), on the way for
tomorrow arrival. That will involve rewiring (well, making new connections
to) the NMEA inputs to the plotter and onward to the computer/autopilot, but
that's trivial.

L8R, y'all

Skip

Skip,

I wonder whether you have given any consideration to what happens if
you are at sea and your gps system dies. Perhaps a small gps that
reads lat. and Lon. and a large scale chart might be a useful thing to
have if all else fails.
--
Cheers,

Bruce in Bangkok

"Bruce in bangkok" wrote in message
...

Skip,

I wonder whether you have given any consideration to what happens if
you are at sea and your gps system dies. Perhaps a small gps that
reads lat. and Lon. and a large scale chart might be a useful thing to
have if all else fails.
--
Cheers,

Bruce in Bangkok

Hi,

We have a handheld Garmin eTrex Venture with a serial cord, and the
ubiquitous usb (prolific usb-to-serial) puck and both work on the computer(s
in the case of the puck - the laptop doesn't have any serial ports).

We always use paper charts as well as electronic (in whatever form) and
could easily (well, tediously easy) mark our locations as we went. Indeed,
that's what we did when we bought the boat in FTL and moved it to St.
Petersburg, around Key West, with an ancient Garmin 75.

So, we're set up for that. Today, as long as I have to cut them anyway, I'm
going to remake the connections on the current RS125, JUST in case there's
an issue there. That it doesn't talk to our downstairs computer serial AS
WELL AS our chartplotter suggests that it's the sensor; failure to acquire,
then acquistion and sudden comms followed by failure, and another acquistion
without comms amplifies the deduction.

Indeed, in my reading (beyond the RM recommendation) I found that these (and
the sister 120s) units seem to be failing at a great rate. Since there are
many who used them in non-RM applications (so SeaTalk wasn't of use), as RM
didn't want to make a replacement, they've referred folks off to where I got
mine (well, to the unit, not the vendor - but, FYI, it's Bethel Marine, in
FL, with great prices and a great attitude to boot) - which I think is very
good customer service. Best, it's about half or less than the RS125,
wherever you can find NOS, and way less than I paid in an open-box eBay
purchase several years ago.

Thanks for the concern.

L8R

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

When a man comes to like a sea life, he is not fit to live on land.
- Dr. Samuel Johnson

On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:34:09 +0700, Bruce in bangkok wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 11:11:46 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

We believe that the unit has bitten the dust - or there's some problem which
makes it intermittent.

Yesterday, doing some other debugging suggested by RM, I had an instance of
it running NMEA sentences in and out, as seen in the diagnostics screen on
my plotter. However, by the time I'd gotten downstairs and into Terminal to
see if it was echoing down there, I had an alarm saying I'd lost position in
the plotter, and data stopped flowing.

It refused to reaquire satellites, something it's never done in our viewing
of it (green blink) so far, and took a long time to acquire after yet
another power cycle. However, that acquisition didn't lead to any input on
the diagnostics, nor reception in Terminal below. Sounds like it's dead...

I've been observing a number of high end garmin chart plotters freezing while I'm out on
the ocean. A power cycle seams to fix it..

As for the Nema problems.. A little(salt) water inside the nema connector chain will
screw up the communications.. Open them up, inspect them for corrosion, clean them using
95% isopropyl alcohol, let them dry before re-assembly. Note: Add a little silicone
grease to o-rings and threads during re-assembly.


But I'd still love to pop it onto someone else' setup for confirmation.
I've got RM's suggested replacement, a GPS105 from Digital Yacht (bought
through Bethel Marine in FL, great folks to work with), on the way for
tomorrow arrival. That will involve rewiring (well, making new connections
to) the NMEA inputs to the plotter and onward to the computer/autopilot, but
that's trivial.

L8R, y'all

Skip

Skip,

I wonder whether you have given any consideration to what happens if
you are at sea and your gps system dies. Perhaps a small gps that
reads lat. and Lon. and a large scale chart might be a useful thing to
have if all else fails.

Before you set sail .. add a chart plotter app to your smart phone..
(They all have built in gps receivers.)

On 9/2/2013 2:52 AM, T. Keating wrote:
On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:34:09 +0700, Bruce in bangkok wrote:

Before you set sail .. add a chart plotter app to your smart phone..
(They all have built in gps receivers.)


Really? An iPhone or Galaxy can display GPS data when out of range of a
cell tower?

On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 07:36:12 -0600, slide wrote:

On 9/2/2013 2:52 AM, T. Keating wrote:
On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:34:09 +0700, Bruce in bangkok wrote:

Before you set sail .. add a chart plotter app to your smart phone..
(They all have built in gps receivers.)


Really? An iPhone or Galaxy can display GPS data when out of range of a
cell tower?

Of course they can... They just can't download any maps..

On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:05:32 -0400, T. Keating
wrote:

Really? An iPhone or Galaxy can display GPS data when out of range of a
cell tower?

Of course they can... They just can't download any maps..

===

Not true. See my previous post re Navionics chart apps.

On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 18:24:27 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:05:32 -0400, T. Keating
wrote:

Really? An iPhone or Galaxy can display GPS data when out of range of a
cell tower?

Of course they can... They just can't download any maps..

===

Not true. See my previous post re Navionics chart apps.

Please post a reference to your post that you reference above. I ask
as I am using an android phone and it seems to be able to receive and
post GPS signals directly from the satellites.

I am using an application called "OsmAnd" that has the ability to
download and store charts on the phone.

--
Cheers,

Bruce in Bangkok