Hello all
My name is Matthew and I am hail from southern New Jersey. We recently purchased a new boat and I installed new Lowrance electronics. The "system" is HDS7 gen 2 touch w/ 3g radar, point1 heading sensor, Airmar transducer and Lowrance link 8 vhf all on the NEA2000 network. The issue I am having is with the AIS, When I installed everything at the house and fired the system up everything worked as it should (radar overlay, AIS on the link 8 and on the Chart plotter display). We put the boat in the slip and after a few trips I attempted to view some AIS targets, but could not get anything to show on the Chart plotter or the link8 AIS display. I changed settings in the link 8 drop down menu and also dug into the HDS settings and still cannot display AIS targets on either the HDS or the link 8 displays.
In the Network settings on the HDS unit, the Link 8 is "seen" on the device list. I also have GPS cordinates displayed on the screen of the link 8. When I look at the data screen for the link 8 on the HDS unit there is no data shown, the data screen is blank.
My antenna is in good working condition and the VHF tx's and rx's wonderfully. I double check the NEMA2000 connections, I even did a hard reset on the link 8. Powered it down then back up and still nothing.
I called Lowrance and talked with a tech, we went over some things and I am still at a loss. I think I am missing something in my set up, somewhere, somehow I am overlooking something. I checked to see if there was any "AIS signals" in my area against 'Marine traffic.com" and there was plenty of signals with range 3 to 20 miles distance.
If anyone is familiar with the settings my system please let me know where I am going array at.
The boat is being shrink wrapped right now and will be back at the house in a day or so, then I will be able to get back at it and try to figure this out.
Thanks
Matty
Hi Matthew,
Welcome to Panbo.
Weird problem. I suggest building up from the ground up. If you disconnect the Link 8 from the NMEA 2000 network -- e.g. power and VHF only -- do you get AIS info on the Link 8 itself?
Hi Kees
I will give that a try this week when the boat gets back to the house.
I will post back as soon as I try that.
Matt
I separated the vhf from the network and let it sit for a while and nothing displayed on the link 8. I double checked it against marinetraffic.com. I am going to check my radio setup settings again, but it's looking like it may be in the radio itself. I will post back.
Matty
Are you sure AIS is enabled in the Link-8 menu system?
I have Simrad RS35 (Simrad version of Link-8) and an AIS transponder in my system so I have AIS disabled for my RS35 to avoid two AIS sources.
Still not working...... I have enabled vessel messaging etc... tried every darn setting possible! Called Lowrance and that was useless. I am soooooo peeeved over this.... I am sure something is wrong in the settings somewhere, I have no AIS displaying on the link at all, everything is enabled too!
Matty
Soooo.... yesterday out in the Delaware Bay the AIS suddenly started to work. Been since 12/04 since it has operated, long time to wait for everything to come on line!
Matty