Help using ais a200 em-track with pc navigo

[cruiuser]

hi,
I am trying to setup my a200 ais with pc navigo 2022,
I get red ais raw text when trying to get ais settings in pc navigo,
I have installed 1.0.0 driver from em-track on windows 10.
I only have one COM3 port and have set it correctly in pc navigo.
can you tell me what i am doing wrong and what this text says?
https://ibb.co/8gDDbjB
thank you

I dont get this example, mine has AIS transponder USB :
https://ibb.co/25tkBQw

[smac999]

are you using a usb cable direct or nmea 183 to a serial to usb converter?

try the baud rate at 38,600.

though if using the USB cable and not nmea 183 I'm not sure what it should be. but not 4800

don't know what the red text is. the aivdo is the ais info

[cruiuser]

thanks for your answer
I'm using a usb cable to nmea 0183 like this https://ibb.co/CmS8cPg
I have set the speed to 38400 in pc navigo.
I think I have set that speed in device manager in pc navigo and in ais a200.
but i am not sure a200 keeps the speed information when it has been turned off.

[stevead]

There appears to be nothing wrong with your NMEA 183 AIS data feed. Looks like you have the baud rate, parity, data, start & stop bits correctly set.

The sentences that begin with !AIVDO,1,1 appear to be valid AIS sentences. NMEA 183 AIS sentences are encoded using a 6 bit ASCII encoding scheme which is why they appear as gobbledygook.

Those that begin with !AIVDO are your own ship transmissions. Those that begin with !AIVDM are AIS transmissions from other ships that have been received by your AIS transceiver. (Note that none of these seem to appear in your screen shot)

It's a shame your screen capture didn't include the complete sentence, or you didn't just paste the text output, as it could be decoded with online AIS decoding tools such as this one.

I am not familiar with the software you are using so do not know whether it is meant to display AIS targets on screen. Other PC chartplotting programs such as OpenCPN are capable of displaying AIS targets on screen.

[cruiuser]

Thank you for your answer,
I couldn’t copy and paste the raw code,
I was going to install ais decoder https://arundaleais.github.io/docs/ais/ais_decoder.html
But before i installed it i did a virus check and it had a virus, all the other software i downloaded had viruses, do you know a source of a ais decoder without a virus?
Thank you

[cruiuser]

I thought the aivdo was my gps antenna feeding my computer.
So from my screen capture do i know if my setup is receiving gps from gps antenna to ais transponder and then to my computer?

All o know now is I do have my correct position indicated on my map in pc navigo.
Thanks

[cruiuser]

That is normal that i am not getting the AIVDM Because i was doing a test inside a house!
And trying to test it the most indoors.
From what you say it looks like when my vhf will be on my boat it will receive other vessels information speed, position, direction

[cruiuser]

I found a more complete screenshot
https://ibb.co/bFQ24kD

[cruiuser]

Can all the ais information from ais transit through nmea 0183 through one single COM3 port?
Because I have seen there is com0com app to get more virtual ports.

[stevead]

Find attached a screen shot of your decoded VDO message.

Assuming the position is correct it looks like a valid VDO message to me.

To answer your specific questions:

Can all the ais information from ais transit through nmea 0183 through one single COM3 port?

Yes. In general AIS transceivers use a single high speed (38400 baud) NMEA 183 connection to transmit VDO & VDM sentences, various GPS sentences such as GLL, RMC (depending on configuration) and some proprietary sentences used to indicate AIS status, configuration and faults.

I am not familiar with the software that you are using but it appears that you are using the VDO messages to provide your own ship's position. Given that an AIS transceiver generate VDO sentences with position information based on its internal GPS then a position derived from a VDO sentence should be valid, however most AIS transceivers also transmit GPS sentences and most chartplotting software use these to display their position.

[cruiuser]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
So on the computer sude i should only have one COM3 port open and then the map software will feed the different information (ais/gps/..) through that single port that comes from nmea 0183?

In my ais settings in the map software I have “use ais position instead of gps” selected, do you think it would be better to use my external gps device instead?

https://ibb.co/GpGkBL8


This is are my gps settings

https://ibb.co/CvPHgbm


Thanks

[stevead]

How many GPS antennas do you have ?

Do you have only one which is connected to your AIS transceiver or do you have two, one connected to the AIS transceiver and a second connected to COM4 on your PC.

If you have only one, which is connected to your AIS transceiver, which in turn is connected to your PC using COM3, I would expect to see both AIS and GPS sentences in the NMEA 183 data stream. It seems as though you are using the VDO messages to provide your position to the chartplotting software. Quite valid, albeit unusual as most users tend to use NMEA 183 GPS sentences, although in this case it appears as though none are seen in your data dumps.

If you have a second GPS antenna that outputs NMEA 183 data and is connected to your PC using COM4, then no reason why you can't use that to provide position data to your chartplotting software. If that is the case I would suggest that your COM4 settings are incorrect as most NMEA 183 devices communicating over a serial port generally use 4800 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit and no parity. If you do indeed have a second GPS, you should double check the documentation to ensure you are using the correct serial port settings.

[wholybee]

In all likelyhood you only need the one connection on com3. But there are MANY ways to setup and configure navigation electronics on a boat. It really depends on how you decide to connect and configure it.

I tried to look at the Navigo website and it seems to be down. It seems to be a basic chartplotting program. The dialog you posted of the connections dialog looks suspiciously exactly like the connections dialog in OpenCPN. Hmmmm....