Good Morning All,

I need a bit of help from our electronic experts.

I’m trying to get my VHF, chart plotter and AIS receiver to talk to each other.

In regards to the radio [on the attached diagram] I now think I have attached the wrong coloured wires. Should have attached the grey and purple, not blue & brown. I will try that out tomorrow.

What concerns me is that I cannot get the AIS to talk to the chat plotter. I can see that the AIS is receiving information but nothing is appearing on the CP screen.





Any help will be gratefully received.

I have Garmin 556 too. Have not got that far yet. Considering Garmin is a master the other units are slaves.
Your schematic looks ok. That of course must be confirmed from the manual's recommended wiring.
I did try something long time ago, I find, nightmare is set up communication protocol on Garmin

Also when I bought mine, presentation of charts was real bad.
Talk to sales " Garming is famous for constantly releasing software updates"
Sure, my unit was miles behind.
Find the correct firmware , created "SD", inserted and wait.
..my hand in pockets and stopped breathing ....
If anything happen in this proces, Garmin brain is bricked and goes to bin.
Just sometimes and somewhere is place to reset, very risky.
Recommend, if you need Upgraded leave it to dealer.
Very often upgrade is to improve stability of comm. links .

Just realized something,

Can you connect two devices together as I've shown or do I have to connect using some of the other wires?

Been thinking maybe this is what the circuit diagram should look like!

I've added the instructions as well.

Great, go ahead, that's the right way.

In some application, there is a common bus communication.
Garmin allow 2 devices to be connected on separate comm. links.

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nswsailor said...
Been thinking maybe this is what the circuit diagram should look like!

I've added the instructions as well.

Yup, this should work. (That said, I have Raymarine, not Garmin, so I'm going off theory.)

By way of explanation, with NMEA 0183 you can only have 1 "talker" on any given connection, although multiple "listeners" can listen in.

In your case, both your Chartplotter and AIS need to talk, albeit different NMEA messages, so they need to use different "ports" and completely different connections.

The VHF radio is a listener, specifically it listens for position messages via one of your Chartplotter output (TX) ports.

AIS units typically don't listen to other messages, they just talk. For your Chartplotter to listen to your AIS's messages, your AIS output (TX) need to be be connected to one of the Chartplotter input (RX) ports. I don't think you need the other connection.

You'll probably also need to configure your Chartplotter to display the AIS targets as well.

Scruzin, can you expand/explain "need to configure your chart plotter to display the AIS signals" please. How is this done.

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HaveFun said...
Scruzin, can you expand/explain "need to configure your chart plotter to display the AIS signals" please. How is this done.

If your Garmin chartplotter is typical of modern units, somewhere under "Settings" there will be an option to "Show AIS targets" (or words to that affect). It may not be ON by default since it can cause of lost of screen congestion in crowded places. There may also be a separate setting under "Alarms" to notify you of impending "Collision targets."

Sorry, I don't have a Garmin myself, but it should be in your manual somewhere.

Thanks everyone for the support BUT,

I did what I laid out today and could still did not get an AIS signal or have the VHF receive a GPS location.

[We do have a local commercial vessel with AIS and checking with MR today it was operating]

So, where do I go from here???

I'm really lost on this one as there are no local 'experts'. There is a local Marine electrician but talking to him it very quickly became apparent that I would be paying him to figure it out for himself first and then paying to rectify my work. Don't like doing that.

I'm open to further suggestions.

I spose you've contacted these jokers ........ support.garmin.com/en-AU/ .... ya never know ya luck in the big city, ya may strike gold (or electronic wisdom)

Did you search the menu on your CP looking for the option "show AIS targets"?, as suggested by scruzin....sounds like the logical option if you think you have wires correct???

Did that Loosechange, weren't much help at all. In fact I contacted all three Raymarine, Garmin & GME, but did not really get the help I needed.

Did that BlueMoon, as far as I can see I've ticked off all the required tabs in the chart plotter.

I'm going to take a few days off this and have a think about it, its got to be something real simple ]and that's not me![

Serial communication is always tricky but compare old days RS 232 is quite primitive.
Simply you have preconfigured a few / perhaps just 5 / communication protocols to choose from.
That's all , but old rules to set up serial comm. still apply.

- guess all wiring is as per second drawing

- get AIS or HF radio, through keypad or computer to enable
NMEA comm. .......select type would match Garmin.

- Garmin set up NMEA ...page 51

........serial comm. is disabled through default.
always recycle power anytime you apply changes to take place

Charriot, do you mean I should power off and on after making changes?

Wiring is per second drawing.

I'll take the laptop out next time as I have a USB connection to the AIS.
I have basic Garmin mapping on it which should allow me to see whats going on.

The default setting is all turned off?

That's exactly what you should do.
Of course after recycling power, check when applied setting is active.
/ should not go back to default /
Also when recycling power, wait 10 sec. Before power up again.