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2 GPS units to 1 VHF unit.


sparky
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Hi all, I am hoping to pick some " Electronic " wizards brains tonight!

I have 2 GPS units on Marichelle and am hoping to connect them BOTH to the same VHF unit so I can get co ordinates on both units at the same time for the DSC connection.

Is this possible, would I just connect the send and receive wires from both GPS units together....is it that simple......OR NOT ?

 

Thanks,  Mick

 

Forgot to say that BOTH  GPS units communicate to each other via an ethernet cable but only 1 shows coordinate data on screen as I did not connect the  transmit and receive wires on 2nd unit.

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Mick, what are these 'GPS' units? Do you mean the MFD (multi function display) aka plotter.

To get coordinate data into your VHF radio is fairly straightforward, but it depends on the make and model of the radio. Traditionally a NMEA 0183 connection is used, doing that way you need to decide the source of the coordinate data (if you have more than one) and wire it to the DSC radio.

Providing 2 sources of coordinates to the radio is not useful, the radio can only handle one set of position information. If you have 2 sources and want to choose which source to supply to the radio then connect both NMEA sources to a switch on the dash and select manually that way.

As a general rule only one source of GPS position information should be used at a time on a boat and that source supplied to everything.





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Cheers Steve, I would only be using 1 plotter at a time as one is already connected.

I have added another plotter to the boat and want to connect that one to vhf as this is the one i will be using mostly, as well as being a back up.

So i assume that if the receive and transmit of both plotters are connected to the radio and only 1 unit is powered up it should be OK ??

The plotters are both Lowrance and the VHF is a Navman I think which has the DSC button on it.

 

Mick

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If you are using the NMEA 0183 then that should be ok, the impedance presented by the powered off plotter should not be so high as to stop the signals getting through. If it does cause a problem you will need a switch to select the source. If both plotters are turned on at once you likely will get corrupt coordinate messages sent to the VHF, it should not break anything, just the radio won't get good coordinates.

 

Good luck

 

 

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