"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
===

It turns out that I've been able to send a lot of my NMEA data over
WiFi without purchasing any hardware at all (assuming you've got an
extra lap top laying around). The trick is something called OpenCPN
software which is nominally a charting program but in reality has
become much more. OpenCPN has the ability to establish network
connections, both inbound and outbound. By using an old laptop to
take in all of my NMEA data on serial ports (GPS data from the chart
plotter and AIS data from the VHF radio), I can then send the data
back out over the WiFi network by doing a UDP broadcast to TCP/IP
address 192.168.0.255:1. Any other computer on the boat can receive
that datastream on the same IP address and port number so I can have
multiple computers at different locations displaying and processing
navigation data.

There is another open source program called NMEA Router that I'm
experimenting with. NMEA router supposedly has the ability to create
virtual COM ports and send data to them. My Airmar Weathercaster
software (virtual weather station) has the ability to receive data
over a USB COM port but not over a network connectionn. NMEA Router
should solve that problem if I can get the virtual COM port feature
working properly. Stay tuned.


Wayne, I've lost your email or I'd not clutter the thread here - but I cc'd
one which may well be out of date...

I'm in the process of trying to isolate why my chartplotter doesn't have a
GPS fix unless my computer's connected to the serial port my electronic
charts use.

A workaround for that would be that I don't TRY to get my NMEA data IN to my
serial port, but rather put OUT the data I get from my USB puck, with its
built-in Prolific USB-serial adapter, or not at all, and have the computer
only as backup eyes-on-the-water.

Do you know how I'd set up for routing data from com6 to com1 (after, of
course, the computer behaved as the first listener), in the event I were to
try to use it as backup, driving the autopilot and/or chartplotter?

Also, I get garbage characters in a string, sometimes very long, after my
sentence sequence from my DigitalYacht GPS105, recommended to me by
Raymarine after my RS125 apparently died - but now, I wonder, as it MAY have
been that I didn't have my computer on during the tests. I suspect that
since those strings end at the location sentence's start, it may interfere
with the chartplotter (or computer, for that matter)'s ability to "find me."

The symptom, which the manufacturer has been diligently working with me on
along with my wiring diagrams to start over in my setup, he claims, is a
problem with the serial interface, and that it would go away over their
USB-serial adapter - which is, from their diagram, a USB male to raw lines
connected to the GPS. I have trouble believing that a simple RS232 port
would introduce that sort of junk, especially since that's been around for
umpty generations of computer progress. And, meanwhile, I have plenty of
USB cables I could sacrifice to merely hook up, unless there's some sort of
software inside their raw-ended cable, if that were ACTUALLY the cause.

Can you agree with that assessment? It's not at all critical that I have
the GPS105 (given that I can use the puck) to the serial port, but it would
be nice as a backup, so long as I didn't use it on incoming with the 105 at
the helm (I'd use the 105 for driving the SSB, VHF and chartplotter, and, if
that failed, running the computer with whatever modus would pass the
signal/sentences, leading the output from the serial to the same legs as
would be the incoming 105).

As intriguing as it is, I think trying to emulate yours is a bit above my
pay grade, let alone a delay to leave, a real no-no aboard, currently.

Thanks.

L8R

Skip, who isn't in RB but only in RBC, in the event there are some over
there who can help; you'd have to crosspost for me to see it...


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