On Jan 29, 7:53 pm, larry wrote:

Don't let the fanboyz, here, sway you from posting the TRUTH. I found your
videos very imformative and anyone can see truthful.

Thank you so much for that. I've got thick skin, but it's always
super-nice to see the spirit of another sailor shine through.

Is there ONLY ONE GPS receiver attached to your Raymarine network in the video?

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.

You had also asked if I had more than one chart plugs in my network.
With the one display, there's only the one chart.

Quite frankly, however, it is my experience with the Raymarine company
- beyond the products - that has left me with the most sour taste in
my mouth. I've been requesting help from them since early this
summer, and I have been MOST patient with them. These YouTube videos
represent to me the end of a very long line of unanswered phone calls
and emails. Quite frankly, they represent my next to last resort.

I had decided to move away from PC based navigation based primarily
upon the blue-screen-of-death that occurs occasionally with my old USB
to serial converters. Once I had had my fill of the Raymarine and
began to investigate other options, the found the guys at Victoria
Marine & Electric and they directed me to a reliable USB to serial
converter, which I've now used for 2 months with zero problems. I'll
certainly keep your WebFoot recommendation handy as well, if I need to
try another approach.

I had a grant one year to use the Cap'n software. It really was a
great product. I've mostly used Maptech, which is also 100% reliable
- although not as feature-rich as the Cap'n.

The one feature that I really wanted in the Raymarine was the ability
to superimpose the radar image on top of the charts. This is a great
feature when approaching an unknown and crowded anchorage - seeing the
echoes of the other boats at anchor drawn over the depth contours
gives me lots of heads up about where to potentially anchor. The guys
at Vic Marine & Electric have shown me that you can get the same
feature with Nobeltec and a Furuno radar. I'll be investigating that
soon, and hope to have it on board before spring sets in.

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!

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.

cognisense wrote in news:740a6e0f-ada6-4979-a3ec-
:

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



AHA! Now we're getting somewhere!

Put the radar in standby and see if the position jumping stops....

Move the GPS off the arch and just sit it on the helm away from
everything for a test trip. (Any excuse to go boating is greeeeeeat.)

My bet is the jumping stops when you shut off the radar transmitter
trashing it.

GPS has no need of altitude. Both ours are in a cabinet over the galley
sink inside the boat with clear RF view of the sky. It only moves when
USAF C-17 fly over us...the aluminum cloud.

Lets get the GPS away from the radar noise source.

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

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??

larry wrote in
:

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??

Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't have
any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding garbage to the
chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart, leading to the blanking. I
can easily imagine this happening if the lat/long is changing too rapidly
for the system to redraw. When the lat/long changes slowly enough, that's
when he sees his position jump. You can't expect to feed garbage to a
system and have it behave "correctly" when the lat/long change delta
exceeds anything reasonable.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't
have any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding
garbage to the chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart,
leading to the blanking. I can easily imagine this happening if the
lat/long is changing too rapidly for the system to redraw. When the
lat/long changes slowly enough, that's when he sees his position jump.
You can't expect to feed garbage to a system and have it behave
"correctly" when the lat/long change delta exceeds anything
reasonable.


He's not in court, yet, so we don't have to "prove" anything to you or
anyone.

Any REASONABLE system would WARN you that it is receiving "garbage" with
some kind of error message on the BLANK SCREENS....instead of just
leaving you there, in the dark, wondering if you're gonna run over a
rock or bouy....

How slow is slow enough for it to render the chart? 5 seconds? 30? a
minute?

There's gotta be some kind of ERROR - WARNING timeout, right? I didn't
see one in the video, just a blank screen saying nothing....

Today, while letting Navicore plot my course to a country church in the
boonies to fix their organ, I was thinking about this thread and those
videos how thankful I was my $200 Nokia N800 Linux tablet and $100 Nokia
12-channel WAAS GPS tiny puck laying up on the dash didn't act this way.

If I boot Maemo Mapper and steal mosaic data from Micro$oft's Virtual
Earth composite through the cell phone, even going through heavy trees
and with the roof of the car causing a large obstruction aft of my
position from its GPS vantage point on top of the dash, I couldn't help
but be pleased as this freeware hacker program downloaded from maemo.org
perfectly plotted my course accurate to the center of the lane in the 4-
lane highway I was driving down at 60+ mph, far faster than a sailboat
needs.

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2007/maemo-mapper/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N800
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teddythebear/149479767/

My LD-3W tiny pocket GPS is much more sensitive and accurate than my
Garmin 185, even with the new Garmin antenna. It cold starts in about
30 seconds and just simply receives much better than any handheld I've
ever owned or seen. Also, being a bluetooth device, separate from the
displaying computer, your not forced to have the display anywhere near
where there's a clear view to the birds....wirelessly! It runs 15 hours
on a charge or you can just leave it plugged into 12V permanently. It
uses a common Nokia Li-Ion cellphone battery. I get about 20' range
between the units.

OK, this ISN'T a marine GPS device. What use is it on the boat?......

Open Google Earth on your computer and zoom in on any waterway with it.
Look at the ICW anywhere in the country, for instance. Zoom in close on
the ICW and look at the waterway from above.....

Now, compare this real satellite photo with the regular old marine chart
on your chart plotter. Wouldn't it be great if you could have both?
For about $350, you can! The Nokia N800 Linux tablet uses bluetooth to
connect to your cellphone and uses the cellphone for internet
service...as well as wifi. It's wifi sensitivity FAR exceeds any
laptop, too, but that's for the marina, we're in the ICW. If your
cellphone can make a call, the internet tablet can connect directly to
Google Earth, Virtual Earth and many other feeds for satellite photos,
street maps, topographical maps over the cellphone data link. You don't
need to buy data plugs with 5-year-old charts on them that are no longer
valid, anyways. You don't need to feed Garmin to open up the old charts
preprogrammed into last year's handheld or fixed mount. The satellite
photos Maemo Mapper operate on are a few months old. It's NOT realtime,
but its a helluva lot more up-to-date than that chart plug you just
bought from Waste Marine.

Zoom Google Earth in on some area from directly overhead and look
closely at the waterway. We'll look at the chart to see the bouy
positions, which don't change much. We'll look at the satellite photo
to see what's up ahead, A REAL PICTURE of it! Imagine Google Earth in
portable computer that also PUTS YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE IN THAT
WATERWAY. It's so close you can see yourself changing lanes on the
interstate. It's so close you can see which parking space you put the
car into in any parking lot. Is that good enough for navigation? Yes,
it is. It won't see another boat because it's not realtime. But, it
will get you on your side of the channel in the fog.

The tablet is also a full-blown Linux computer that will do email, web
browsing, run hundreds of programs the hackers have ported to it. It
just got Abiword from the Linux community, a full featured word
processor (www.abiword.com) Go download the Windows version for your
laptop or home computer. It will do things Microsoft Word won't do for
FREE! There's a full Gnutella spreadsheet so complex I don't know what
all it can do. It came from Linux, too. The tablet can check your
email while navigating the waterways on Maemo Mapper, simultaneously.

Well, please don't slam me for showing you this. I don't care if you
like it or not, really. But, others may find it quite useful, both on
the boat and in their world.....

larry wrote in news:Xns9A366B59EE263noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't
have any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding
garbage to the chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart,
leading to the blanking. I can easily imagine this happening if the
lat/long is changing too rapidly for the system to redraw. When the
lat/long changes slowly enough, that's when he sees his position jump.
You can't expect to feed garbage to a system and have it behave
"correctly" when the lat/long change delta exceeds anything reasonable.

He's not in court, yet, so we don't have to "prove" anything to you or
anyone.

Any REASONABLE system would WARN you that it is receiving "garbage" with
some kind of error message on the BLANK SCREENS....instead of just
leaving you there, in the dark, wondering if you're gonna run over a
rock or bouy....

How slow is slow enough for it to render the chart? 5 seconds? 30? a
minute?

There's gotta be some kind of ERROR - WARNING timeout, right? I didn't
see one in the video, just a blank screen saying nothing....

How many systems are out there that wouldn't display an error message? I'd
guess that most vendor's systems wouldn't, as they expect the data to be
correct. What do you think your RL70 would do if it got bad data? Or a
Garmin? Probably the same thing. Expecting the developers to add in code
to check for rare events like this just doesn't happen. They have higher
priority functions to implement.

In my opinion, RayMarine isn't the bad guy here. I think that there's a
very high probability that he has something mis-configured in his system.
Your guess that it's the positioning of the GPS antenna seems reasonable,
especially when you look at the photos of the radar arch and GPS mushroom.
This should be easy to determine by running the system and turning the
radar on and off.

Since it appears that he installed the system by himself and hasn't
obtained professional help, RayMarine seems to have done everything that
they should have, and probably more.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

On Jan 31, 7:29 am, larry wrote:

I am very happy to report that further speculation in this matter will
not be necessary: my dealer has just informed me that the decision
has been made to graciously accept the return of these products.

To all of those who took the time to contemplate possible solutions to
the problems exhibited, and especially to the majority of you who did
so without feeling any need to resort to personal insults while doing
so, I offer my sincerest thanks.

There will always be a cold beer awaiting you aboard my vessel.