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Hello. Sorry to bother you, but I have a technical query here, regarding connecting a Quark A028 AIS receiver, via a NMEA2000 backbone, to a B&G Vulcan 7 chartplotter.
– I’m setting it up at home, which overlooks the sea, with a clear view to sea and an antenna elevation of 90+ ft.
– I’m taking the power from a 220-12V PSU giving 12.2V at the output connections.
– I have both sets of +ve and -ve wires from the quark power T-piece connected to the 12V DC supply (the system won’t connect both devices unless both sets of wires are powered).
– I have a GPS antenna and a VHF antenna connected to it; the VHF antenna is a new spare whip type antenna, with about 40 ft of coax; the VHF antenna itself is mounted on a pole with clear line-of-sight over the sea; at the receiver end, there’s a UHF plug on the coax, which I have connected to a BNC adapter so that it goes into the AIS socket on the A028 receiver.
– I haven’t connected a splitter into the system yet, as I don’t have a VHF radio here at home, and I want to keep it as simple as possible while trying to get the receiver to read on the chart plotter.
The AIS A028 is showing up on the Vulcan Device List. When I click on that device and click “Data”, I see an array of data including altitude and lat/long; so it seems that the GPS side is reading to the chart plotter.
I phoned B&G, and they tell me that the Vulcan 7 shouldn’t need any special configuration. They did say I could try pressing “Auto-select” if I wanted, though that shouldn’t be necessary. In fact I’ve done that loads of times anyway.
Where I live, there aren’t many vessels at all. But I know that there’s a ferry and a cargo vessel based in Bofin Harbour, about 4nm from the antenna and in line of sight, each transmitting AIS (I can see them on a phone app, and there was also a yacht within 3-4nm, last evening). I can see them by eye when they’re on passage from Bofin Island to Cleggan, between 4 and about 1.5nm away, but they don’t show up on the chart plotter.
On the A028, the red power LED blinks on and off OK. The green GPS LED blinks on and off also. The green AIS LED is more or less constant on, though it kind of ‘trembles’ as if there’s a signal but maybe not entirely constant.
So that’s the situation. I’m getting no overlay of vessels on the chart plotter, and no vessel showing up in the Vessels list on the chartplotter.
I realise that it’s difficult for you to determine what’s happening, at a distance. However…may I ask you: first, does the LED lit-up situation sound right to you, particularly with regard to the AIS LED? Second, is there any way I can confirm that the unit is receiving a VHF signal in? Third, is there any set-up procedure I should follow with regard specifically to the A028? Finally, given the antenna set-up (elevation approx 80 ft, clear line of sight over sea), about what range should I expect with that set-up?
I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve spent days and days fiddling, trying to get set up, and by now I’ve more or less run out of options.
I hope you can advise. Thank you in advance, and regards
Hi, thanks for your information. The read LED and GPS LED both works properly. So I believe your A028 works well.
Regarding the AIS LED, can you confirm which behavior you have observed:
1, Keep constant on.
2, Flashing very fast(sometimes you maybe think its constant on, its just because the AIS signal is too busy, so LED flashes very very fast).
If its the first situation, then it maybe something wrong with the hardware. Normally this is due to over voltage charging. Bear in mind N2K backbone can only accept 12V(10% tolerance). So I think you need send your A028 back to us for fixing.
If not the first case, can you please try to get your USB port work and use a serial port monitor software(like HyperTerminal) to see if there are AIS/GPS messages send output.
Keep us updated please.
Thanks so much for coming back to me.The receiver is working fine now!
I tracked down the problem. In order to set the system up initially without a VHF splitter, I needed to plug the VHF antenna directly into the receiver’s BNC socket, for which I needed an adapter. So I went on line and bought a packet of two adapters, via Amazon. It turns out that both of them were useless; the connection to the socket was very loose. When I added in the splitter, which allowed me to plug the VHF antenna into the splitter without an adapter, and the splitter’s BNC plug into the receiver, it started to work fine. In fact, yesterday it has been picking up some vessels at a distance of 25 nautical miles, though that may be due to odd weather conditions.
So…the Quark A028 is fine and doing its job. There are very few vessels within the usual range of maybe 10 miles, and the VHF green LED only flashes on very briefly every 30 seconds, I suppose when it receives an AIS signal from the one vessel in range.
Very grateful for your assistance.
Hi Albinatum, Can you kindly share the adapter information with us please.
Hi brianluce, there are two types of adapters in the market(male and female ones). We have the proper adapter on our online shop so you can purchase from us or find a compatible one from your local shop.
https://www.quark-elec.com/product/uhf-so239-female-to-bnc-male-connector/
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