networking question

[bristol321]

Hi all,
Ok so I have a question about networking my icom m710 ssb and m504vhf to my gps antenna for a furuno 1723c radar. For either radio to register my mmsi info and lat/long the radar unit has to be on (at least the plotter) so tha the gps antenna is powered. Is there anyway to power the gps antenna without firing up the radar unit? Is there a stand alone gps antenna that could be switched on solely for the radio?

[negrini]

If you're using the 310B GPS unity (antena + GPS receiver in a single box), you'll need to power up the +12V from a switch in order to have it functional. To get NMEA sentences from it, you'll need to wire the radios in parallel to the 1723C. Then check if 310B is capable to feed 3 NEMA inputs (but it's capable in mostly cases): 1- SSB, 2- 1723, 3- VHF and you're set. If you want a separated GPS receiver, you can use either another Furuno 310/320B or any other brand like Ray125. Just check your installation manual ....

[sailingdog]

It depends on the GPS antenna you have. Many, like the Garmin GPS17 or the Raymarine Raystar 125 will output NMEA 0183, and could easily be setup to talk to the radios. You'd just have to setup a separate switch for the GPS antenna and then connect the radios as listeners in parallel with the MFD as negrini points out—usually where the MFD picks up the NMEA 0183 signal.

Others are proprietary, and do not output a signal that the radios can understand, and need to go through the MFD before you can get an NMEA 0183 signal from them.