I have just ordered a new electronics package to take down south with me to Cartagena and need a little help with identifying any cables/accessories I might require to finalize the setup.
Here is what I have on the way so far:
RAYMARINE C120W RADAR PACKAGE
AIRMAR H2183 HEADIGN SENSOR
AIRMAR 1WS2-C06 NMEA2000 Cable 6
NAVICO NAIS-300 AIS NMEA2000
GARMIN 200 VHF/DSC NMEA2000
Thinking I am missing:
AIS Antenna or antenna splitter.
Raymarine NEMA 2000 backbone with NEMA 2000 cables to connect the GARMIN VHF and the NAVICO AIS.
From my experience with installing my ICOM 802 rig, there is loads more involved than just buying a piece of kit (in this case it was the radio/antenna/ground plane/antenna tuner/ pactor modem/computer interface and all the cables that tie it all together.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Graham
If you are doing this yourself, I would strong suggest that you set up everything you can on the bench at home. It will give you the big picture on the layout and connections, and let you do a lot of preliminary trouble shooting. Take copious notes and pictures. The more completely you can set up this stuff at home near a land line telephone and broadband internet connection, the more hair you will have left later on. I had my entire system up and running on the dining room table [yes, I'm single] before trying to set it up on the boat. All I needed was a small battery and charger, and a pole outside the window for antennas. Just don't transmit.
1) Consider getting the Maretron N2K Cable, mid-size cable for the backbone, and micro size cable for the devices. The standard Airmar cables will plug right into the Maretron T's. Maretron sells cables so you can cable Garmin and Raymarine products into their backbone.
2) Forget splitting the VHF antenna, just put a dedicated AIS antenna on your stern rail.
3) Sailboat, right? Your missing an Airmar PB20 or 150 from the list. More important than AIS.
4) What are you instrument displays? Raymarine? The Raymarine charplotters do a very good job of converting between protocols. However, if you want the option to sail with your chartplotter turned off, Raymarine has a NMEA2000 to seatalk bridge you may want to consider.
5) I partially disagree with Sandy about setting up on a dining room table. While it would help you identify missing parts, it's a lot of trouble for N2K gear that generally just talks well to each other, and any limitations you do find (AIS proprietary PGN not recognized for example) won't be solvable and you will just decide to live without it if you already purchased the equipment. Re-read Ben's posts on the products your purchasing, much better use of time then playing with the equipment on your dining room table. IMO