{"id":769,"date":"2013-01-09T02:18:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T02:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/?p=769"},"modified":"2018-01-21T18:57:22","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T02:57:22","slug":"marine-tracking-gps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/marine-tracking-gps-769\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting an M7-GX to a Raymarine Multifunction Display"},"content":{"rendered":"

The M7-GX series of GPS transponders<\/a> may be directly connected to any\u00a0Raymarine A, C, E or G <\/b>series <\/b>display.\u00a0 All of these Raymarine displays have at least one NMEA-0183 port. This allows them to be used with Raveon\u2019s\u00a0RavTrack<\/i>\u00a0series of GPS radio transponders to make a complete GPS tracking system. For this article, the Raymarine E80 product will be used as an example but the other models in the Raymarine line have similar integration steps.<\/p>\n

\"Raymarine<\/p>\n

When connected to the M7-GX GPS radio\u00a0transponder, the\u00a0E80 map will show the location of the user\u00a0plus<\/strong> the location of all other\u00a0transponders within radio range.\u00a0 This unique feature allows a user to quickly, easily and inexpensively make a\u00a0portable AVL system for tracking cars, trucks, race cars, construction equipment or anything Raveon\u2019s M7-GX\u00a0transponder may be installed on.<\/p>\n

The Raymarine displays have a built-in interface for NMEA 0183<\/strong> devices,\u00a0a serial data port intended for RS422\/RS232 operation. The Raymarine E80 supports RS232 levels on the communications lines as well as the RS422 levels. Since RS422 was designed for differential signaling, there are pairs of signal wires instead of a single-ended ground that is shared between the Rx and Tx lines. For an RS232 protocol, one can tie the two negative wires of the NMEA 0183 signal pairs together to act as the ground.<\/p>\n

The NMEA 0183 defaults to 4800 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshake (4800-8-N-1).\u00a0 It is used to exchange\u00a0way-point and other information between displays, GPS devices, and transponders.<\/p>\n

When Raveon\u2019s M7-GX transponder is connected to the\u00a0Raymarine E80 using the NMEA 0183 connection, the\u00a0GPS radio\u00a0transponder can put icons on the screen of the E80. As the transponder receives updated positions from other vehicles, it updates the position of the tracked vehicle icons on the E80 display.<\/p>\n

\"NMEA<\/p>\n

Raymarine E80\u00a0Wiring<\/h3>\n

The Raymarine E80 has the 5-pin NMEA 0183 connector shown to the right, located on the rear of the unit. NMEA 0183 is a common communications format for marine applications. See the following diagram for general wiring connections.<\/p>\n

\"R08005\"<\/p>\n

The recommended cable for interfacing to this NMEA 0183 port is the R08004 NMEA cable. It is a 5-wire cable with an Rx pair (differential + and -), Tx pair (differential + and -) and drain wire (unused). For the case of the E80-M7 system, the only used connections will be the white wire (NMEA input +) and the green wire (NMEA input common). These NMEA 0183 cables come in various forms so make sure to verify that the correct wire pairs (Rx, Tx or both) are included in the cable assembly before purchasing. Here is a picture of the full cable assembly with both Rx and Tx wires:<\/p>\n

Wiring the Serial Cable<\/h3>\n

The E80 NMEA 0183 port must be connected to the M7-GX GPS transponder. This connection will allow the M7-GX to put icons on the screen of the E80 display, showing the location of other tracked vehicles.\u00a0 The M7-GX GPS transponder uses a 9-pin DB9 as it’s serial connection.\u00a0Solder the\u00a0E80 data cable wires onto a DB9 connector and plug the DB9 into the M7 transponder as shown below:<\/p>\n

\"db9\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"NMEA<\/p>\n

Connect the\u00a0white wire (NMEA input +, pin 2) on the R08004 cable to the serial data output (pin 2) on M7-GX DB9 connector. Then, connect the green wire (NMEA input -, pin 1) on the R08004 cable to the ground of the M7-GX DB9 connector. You do not need to connect the\u00a0brown, yellow or braid wires on the R08004 cable so you can trim them off if desired.<\/p>\n

Configuring the E80<\/h3>\n

Verify that the serial data communications are set to 4800 baud-8-N-1 on the E80.<\/p>\n

Configuring the M7 GX Transponder<\/h3>\n

Raveon has a designed the M7 GX transponder to work with the E80 display or any other NMEA 0183 display that can accept the \u201c$GPWPL\u201d NMEA message.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The $GPWPL is an industry standard message that many GPS displays interpret as a waypoint command.\u00a0 The M7 GX outputs this $GPWPL message to put icons on the screen of the E80, and to move the\u00a0icons around on its screen.<\/p>\n

To configure the M7 transponder to output the $GPWPL message, set the M7 GX to GPS mode 4<\/strong>.\u00a0 To do this, put it into the configuration mode by send the +++ into the serial port.\u00a0 The M7 will respond with an OK.\u00a0 Type GPS 4 and press enter to put it into GPS 4 mode.\u00a0 GPS 4 is the mode that causes the M7 GX to output $GPWPL messages whenever it receives a status\/position message over the air
\n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The M7-GX series of GPS transponders may be directly connected to any\u00a0Raymarine A, C, E or G series display.\u00a0 All of these Raymarine displays have at least one NMEA-0183 port. This allows them to be used with Raveon\u2019s\u00a0RavTrack\u00a0series of GPS radio transponders to make a complete GPS tracking system. For this article, the Raymarine E80 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raveon.com\/data_radio_info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}