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cognisense wrote in news:30dfe109-f7f6-48a3-958c-
:

Yes. It's very interesting that you experienced similar jumps with
your old setup. I've only got one display and one GPS, but it is
possible that the jumps are being caused by something external to the
display. Another poster here had mentioned cable problems, and that's
worth looking into. I'll report back if I find anything.


Another GPS problem bears thinking about in your situation, also.....

I noticed in your video your close proximity to tall land masses, the
mountains of SW BC. Not much is ever said about it because most don't
want to believe GPS is fallible, but it is....

GPS is an analog system of precisely timed pulses, not unlike Loran C
was but with much heavier computing power behind it. It relies heavily
on the direct path of these microwave pulses for its position fix.
ANYthing that reflects radio waves coming from the satellites to its
receiver, causes the pulses to arrive LATER than they should. This
confuses some receivers much worse than others, especially the
expensive, higher sensitive ones who, I think, stupidly have much more
receiver sensitivity than they should. The better receiver can hear
these reflections better than the cheap ones with lots less antenna.
Once confused by the arrival of odd-timed pulses, duplicate pulses,
etc., it's up to the software to average out and discriminate against
erroneous pulses. It's supposed to pick the FIRST set of pulses, the
direct ones, not later arriving pulse trains from the same satellite.
But, alas, sometimes that doesn't happen. If the reflection is all it
hears, its algorithms take that as the primary pulse and switch the fix
from the triangulation accordingly.

You can try this, yourself, with your handheld GPS no subject to the
Raymarine nonsense. (I don't like Raymarine, either, so I'm not afraid
to speak up.) Take your handheld with you when you go to a restaurant
with big windows and an overhead RF opaque roof of metal. When you're
situated at your table, away from the windows is best to see its effect,
turn on the GPS and let it initialize to what it hears. Through the big
windows, transparent to the RF, the GPS starts picking up signals
bouncing off moving vehicles, adjacent buildings, towers, light poles,
any reflective surface. It drives the software crazy because it sees
almost no direct signals because the roof attenuates or blocks it
entirely. Turn on the GPS' bread trails and zoom in as tight as it can
go. Eat your breakfast and let it run an hour. Watch the "track" of
it. It's useless for navigation, too. This is a trait of GPS, not
Raymarine. Now, make SURE the GPS antenna isn't NEAR any metal objects
that can obscure large parts of the sky. I've found GPS antennas
mounted too close to masts, stancions, metal plates, wiring, all opaque
to that DIRECT signal. As the boat turns, the direct signal, like the
sun coming out of an eclipse, which is exactly what is happening,
suddenly appears from behind the opaque object. The software says
"WHOA! The timing to THAT bird has just changed RADICALLY! I better
compensate, and compensate it does....making its display JUMP like you
observe. Pick the GPS with the "Crazy Track" off the table and sit it
in one of the big windows on the window sill. It suddenly can see all
the direct signals that were eclipsed by the roof in one direction.
Watch the fix point. It jumps!

I had a GPS problem with a mounted Garmin whos antenna was on top
surface of the stern. He had the antenna in the clear....well, except
for the STERN NAV light it was nearly touching. The whole sky in one
direction, probably about 100 degrees, was BLOCKED by the metal mount of
that light. After we'd moved it to a more open position, the fix quit
jumping around whenever the boat turned that blind eye away from a fix
bird. We moved it about 8". The part of the sky the light blocked was
now only 20 degrees, which it seemed easily to compensate for because it
could see more birds, directly.

This is another cause of "jumping".

GPS is a lot less high tech than the public thinks it is. It's not
Ethernet...(c; That's why it updates SO SLOWLY...once per second. It's
working trying to be accurate in a noisy wasteland of RADIO signals.

This is for your next GPS, not this overpriced Z80-based slowpoke. God,
I can't believe it just BLANKS the screens, even just one, so LONG! I'd
hope if it's receiving crap on Seatalk it would be smart enough to TELL
YOU SO with some kind of error message....not just blank out hoping for
the best.

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the 25, 5
on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test cable.)
Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht connection
to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop. Plug Seatalk
Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams by. At some
point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and look down
through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't encrypted...
(c;

http://www.raymarine.com/raymarine/S...s/raytech/8116
6_3www.pdf
This is the manual for the Seatalk to NMEA converter box Raymarine
sells. Your MONITOR is also a converter box. If you put Seatalk data
into its Seatalk port, it converts and transmits it to NMEA on its NMEA
out ports...IF YOU TURN THE STATEMENTS ON FROM THE MENU TREE! If your
computer is reading NMEA statements from the NMEA OUT port on the
display, and there's crap on the Seatalk port....there'll be crap coming
out of the NMEA port, too.....or none at all for some period of time.

HF RADIO TRANSMITTERS EAT SEATALK in a lot of installations. Even foil
shielded cable doesn't stop it.

Watch either the Seatalk or NMEA data streams as the display just blanks
for long periods of time. If the data looks right...so much for blaming
the cabling for the delay....

Well, it's after 1AM. I'll try to conjure up more when the screen comes
back into focus....tomorrow...(c;

Gnite
It's 1AM, 58F, 2 knot winds SW. Plenty of dock space, albeit a little
pricey for some in the harbor. Drop by, we'll eat Gullah fish and grits
for breakfast.... It was nearly 70F today. I see you like gunkholing.
There's 2200 miles of navigable creeks within 50 miles of this keyboard.
Most you can drop anchor in and never see another soul all weekend!



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cognisense wrote in news:7d889c85-85a8-42b3-9f28-
:

I understand that posting information to the internet leaves one open
to all sorts of criticism and uninformed opinions, but I know in my
heart that if I had seen these videos prior to purchasing the
Raymarine products, I would have saved the enormous amount of money I
put into it.


The issue here is that YOUR system has a problem and you're implying
that this is a generic issue. It isn't. I have a C80 in my system and
know lots of other people who have Cxxx systems, and none of them have
this issue. And believe me, cruisers love to sit around and talk about
what problems they have.

One of the major problems is how you're approaching your issues.
Instead of coming to newsgroups/forums such as this and trying to
resolve the problems, you post a video and supporting text which states
how terrible RayMarine is and you try to extort RayMarine to return your
money for the system.

Somehow or another you're claiming that your system cost $15K. Excuse
me, but the C120 is a $2000 device. What else is in this system?
Clearly there's a lot of other equipment and something is mis-
configured.

I've asked a whole series of questions and you haven't answered any of
them. Based upon other comments that you've made, it's fairly apparent
that you installed and configured the system by yourself. You've talked
about your "vendor" which is vastly different from "installer."

These are complex systems and are far from plug-and-play. You may be a
"software developer and systems architect", but that doesn't mean that
you know squat about how to properly configure (and debug) this system.

Instead of trying to resolve your issues, you want everyone to simply
believe your video and text and go "Boo hoo, you poor thing. RayMarine
is a terrible company and should give you your money back." What I
think that they should do is offer to pay for a qualified installer to
review your system and if the problem is with your installation, you
will pay for the review plus time that they've spent resolving your
isues and you'll make a public apology stating what a stupid jerk you've
been.

However, I'm not RayMarine and can't make any decisions for them. But I
have a fairly complex system that I've lived with for 9 years and am
quite familiar with. I've done extensive upgrades and debugging through
the years, so I'm willing to help. I think that you'll also find others
out here who can help.

I'm not trying to state that RayMarine is great or makes the best
systems around. Every system has warts and quirks, but in general once
you get things running correctly, it works well. Your system clearly
has problems and the fact that they've already replaced the system board
in the C120 indicates that the problems lie elswhere.

So instead of ringing your hands, doing the poor-me routine and
generating videos which show that your system does have problems, why
don't you try to resolve the issues?

First off, it would be very useful if you described how your system is
configured. How many SeaTalk busses are you using and what's attached
to each of them? What kind of GPS are you using and where is it
conencted? Assuming that you have a SeaTalk based GPS, have you tried
disconnecting all of the other SeaTalk devices (and busses) to see if
the problem goes away?

Does the C120 connect to an autopilot and if so, who makes it and how is
it connected? What do you see when you go into the system configuration
menus? Do you see all of your devices and do you see any SeaTalk error
message counts? Are you using NMEA and do you have NMEA Bridging turned
on or off?

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

P.S. Your video also shows you wandering through menus apparently
trying to view tidal data. Why don't you simply enable tidal stations
so that you can simply place the cursor over the "T" on the chart and
view the data? It's much easier using the menus and/or "find nearest".
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On Jan 29, 10:14 pm, larry wrote:

GPS is an analog system of precisely timed pulses, not unlike Loran C


Fascinating post - regarding the inherent fallibility of GPS
technology. That was a really good read - thanks.

Prior to installing the Raymarine GPS, I've been using a Garmin GPS III
+ connected through a USB to serial connector into a laptop. I've
never seen this type of behavior on the Garmin - but then again, the
external antenna which I used on the Garmin was well away from any
metal.

The Raymarine is mounted on my brand new radar arch, about 6" away
from an external Wi-Fi antenna and 4' away from the Raydome. I don't
use the Wi-Fi antenna when I'm underway, and it's only about 1"
diameter x 30" tall, so I'm not sure if that creates enough of a
shadow to cause the problems. Here is a photo of the setup:

http://anon.org/images/arch.jpg

This photo was shot during the 2 months that Raymarine was replacing
my E120's motherboard - so all you can see of the GPS is the white
plastic bag covering the base - but it should give you an idea as to
what the install looks like.


By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire


Another exceedingly helpful thought. I'll certainly give it a try.



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On Jan 30, 2:55 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
... I drove down and a tech
came out and looked at my unit. I couldn't have been happier with the
outcome. ...


I've tried and failed miserably to get support from them while in
Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. If you add the price of an
airplane ride, car and hotel into the "support" cost Furuno starts
looking cheap...

-- Tom.
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larry wrote in news:Xns9A35D2BBAFB1noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the 25, 5
on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test cable.)
Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht connection
to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop. Plug Seatalk
Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams by. At some
point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and look down
through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't encrypted...


You don't need to do this as software on the C120 will allow you to monitor
the traffic on the NMEA and SeaTalk busses. I think that you'll find this
in the System Integration screen. This is also where you'll see the error
counts.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org
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Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

You don't need to do this as software on the C120 will allow you to
monitor the traffic on the NMEA and SeaTalk busses. I think that
you'll find this in the System Integration screen. This is also where
you'll see the error counts.



If it's not fast enough to render the raster....when does it have time to
log data??

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On Jan 30, 12:10 am, cognisense wrote:
On Jan 29, 11:14 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:

Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. The display head my not have any problems, but there could be
issues with devices on the SeaTalk bus.


Excellent points. I did have the GPS unit checked out with the E120,
and they claimed it to be working fine. Also on the SeaTalk bus are
the Wind/Speed/Depth instruments. When the E120 was off my boat, they
performed flawlessly.

I have a C80 which runs the same software that is on the C120 and I've
never seen any of the issues that you describe.


I'm certainly very happy for you that your system is working well.
Why mine is flawed is something that seems to confound my dealer as
well as the Raymarine distributor here in Canada.

Have you reviewed the output of the diagnostics such as SeaTalk
message errors?


That's another excellent suggestion. I'll look into this and report
back. It sure would have been nice if one of the Raymarine techs had
suggested it. But, as I've stated in other posts, they've ignored my
emails for over 60 days now. And believe me, my emails were very,
very politely written. All bitterness you or others might detect in
my videos was definitely not in the emails - and only exist in the
videos because this struggle has been going on all summer long and
I've been forced into taking my grievances public.


You have every right to be upset. I have avoided the new Raymaine
plotters because they are based on a Windows OS. Well reliable a
mobile OS is not designed to be mission critical. I believe part of
your problem may be the Navionics cards themselves. Specifically the
memory chip may be causing the back plain bus to hang causing the
screen blanks. May I suggest you try a card that is known to be in
good operating order. Also remove all the interfaces to the unit
except the GPS. Note that you can check the GPS with a laptop using
its NEMA interface. With respect to the radar being outof synce you
may need to add a Gyro to your system.

Good luck.

Bob
"Nightingale" Beneteau 331
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