RE: GPS on KVH

This is an interesting discussion. We tried to hook up our GPS to the KVH sail comp with no success. yet the instructions made it sound quite simple. We have a Standard GPS i wonder if this is the same problem. [Mike Guccione]

 -----Original Message-----
From: owner-santana3030@sailpix.com [mailto:owner-santana3030@sailpix.com]On Behalf Of John Heaney
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 7:02 PM
To: J. Bee Bednar
Cc: Santana3030 Mailto; techs@kvh.com; sales@garmin.com Subject: Re: GPS on KVH

      I don't know anything about a "Quadro", but for over a year I've been attempting to get my below-deck Garmin GPS chartplotter to "talk" to my KVH Sailcomp digital compass. No success yet, despite considerable time communicating with both KVH and Garmin by e-mail.

      Supposedly, the mast mounted display for my KVH compass is designed to also act as a repeater for certain information transmitted by the GPS. This would be an absolutely great feature if I could get it to work and was a major factor in my decision to buy a KVH Sailcomp over its competition. With the push of single button, the compass display is supposed to change and show the course ("bearing") and distance to the next waypoint. Assuming you've taken the time to enter all of your local racing buoys into your GPS as waypoints, it would then be very easy to find the next mark, estimate your laylines and jibing angles, etc. without having to send someone below deck or deal with all the problems of using a small, easily damaged handheld GPS.       The problem seems to be that for the last 6 or seven years Garmin and all other manufacturers of GPS's use version 2.0 or higher of a communication protocol known as NMEA 183. KVH is still using version 1.5. The precise "sentence" that the KVH Sailcomp needs to receive from the GPS to function properly is not transmitted by version 2.0 (although the same information is available from other sentences). KVH has been most uncooperative in helping to find a solution and apparently has no interest in updating their software to accommodate newer GPS's. Instead, KVH wants to place the blame on Garmin. Garmin is trying to figure out a way to get their units to be compatible with older NMEA devices, but no solution yet.

          I hope this is of help to you. If you have any more luck with KVH than I, please let me know.

                  JOHN HEANEY
                  SPIRIT
                  Southern California Fleet Captain

  "J. Bee Bednar" wrote:

    Has anyone out there successfully hooked a GPS to their KVH Quadro?     If so, what did you do and how did you do it?

    Thanks

    Bee
    Sea Bee

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*       J. Bee Bednar                                           *

*       Advanced Data Solutions                                 *

*       bednarb@AdvancedDataSolutions.com                       *