APRS, Oregon 450, Kenwood D-710

[VE3OIJ]

After years of service with my Kenwood D-700 and D-710 for APRS, my old Garmin GPSMap 76CS gave up the ghost.  I replaced it with a Garmin Oregon 450.

However, nothing I do seems to render the Oregon 450 workable on APRS.  I absolutely cannot get NMEA out of the thing.  I have acquired the correct cable ( http://www.gpscity.ca/garmin-power-and-data-cable-for-nuvi-5xx-zumo-220.html ).  I have wired it correctly per instructions here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrO8exEWG60 .  I have cut off the correct connections and wired them correctly again just in case I managed to damage cable in some way.

The GPS detects that there is power in the cable and behaves accordingly.  The Kenwood D-710 has no idea there's a GPS there.  It is neither receiving position data from the GPS, nor does it seem to be sending waypoint data to the GPS.

The GPS is set for NMEA out at 4800 bd.  The radio is similarly configured (and worked with the other GPS just fine).  It just looks like the GPS isn't doing NMEA... it's just sitting there.

Does anyone have experience with this GPS and APRS?

[K0JEG]

Are you able to connect the GPS to a PC (using the same cable with some adaptation)? If so, you should be able to use hyperterminal to see the NMEA data. As long as you have serial port settings correct (4800/n/8/1), you should see a line of data once per second. If you are getting gibberish or nothing at all, it might not be sending data in the correct format.

I seem to remember being able to pass-through GPS data on the D-700, which should tell you the same thing. But looking directly at the serial output would be best.

[VE3OIJ]

I haven't tried that yet.  I will probably build the serial adapter in the next week or so and have a look.  I was hoping there was some obscure setting that is particular to this GPS, but it does look like I'm going to have to diagnose the signal levels etc.

[WB8VLC]

Go into SETUP, SYSTEM and then interface and change the interface selection to SPANNER, you don't have to runn spanner either just set the GPS to spanner and it should fix it.

If the GPS displays a message 'something about Mass storage mode' select > No.

I had the same problem with map62st.

Also if your GPS to TNC connections are from the mini usb style port on the Oregon to a dedicated DB-9 on TNC then you can use the following cable which is also used on the Rhino radios, no flywires needed.

Rhino serial cable Model 010-10572-00

http://www.gpscity.ca/garmin-rino-5xx-series-pc-interface-cable.html

Mike

[WB8VLC]

I don't know if you tried this yet but if not then realized I left out one important step.

Also the reason that I had to set my 'GPS interface' to spanner was that mine would go into mass storage mode and spanner I found was the only setting  that let me get into GPS mode.

The step that I forgot is that after you set spanner in the 'GPS interface' menu you should see another menu item named  'NMEA Sentences', try going to this menu item and go down to GARMIN proprietary and set it to OFF and see if this fixes it.

Th rhino serial cable comments are still good and this lets you get serial out put without the need to power the GPS externally, it makes for a smaller portable setup.


Mike