Carver Owners Forum

Wondering if my 2003 396 has NMEA. Was it standard install?

Thanks

Zoomiej, that will all depend upon your electronics as to which NMEA standard they use, if they used it at all. The NMEA standards allow you to use a Garmin plotter with a Raymaine GPS receiver And a digital yachts AIS TRANSCEIVER. In other words, in the simplest terms it is a communications protocol that allows you to network your electronics. My guess is that your chartplotter, GPS etc. of that age would be NMEA 0183. Some of the newer electronics can use either NMEA 0183 or 2000.

It's doubtful it came from factory with NMEA 200 for that vintage unless a previous owner upgraded the electronics. What brand and model display do you currently have?

Furuno Navnet with Close array radar. Raymarine Auto Pilot.

Ray, thanks for the response and it makes good sense to me.

Would you know if there is an adapter that could bring the current system (I suspect it is the NMEA 183) to NMEA 2000, that would allow me to slip in a WiFi adapter so that I can pull AIS into the Frey?

There are converters / gateways available. Furuno and Raymarine both have converters to convert from 0183 to 2000. and Actisense makes a bi-directional gateway. Whether or not they can do what your wanting to do I don’t know. All depends on your current system and how much your willing to upgrade. if your wanting AIS, you may be better off at finding a used receiver or transceiver. Your display unit and it’s abilities will dictate exactly what you will be able to do.

Zoomie, I’m working on that now I have a Raytheon autopilot and radar with a new Garmin GPS. What I have come up with is my Garmin needs to come off the gps Nema port and hook up to the course computer Nema terminals to talk to the autopilot to follow a course with waypoints. I need to call Garmin for the cable number. Hope this helps.