[kathill]

I don't like the BU-353 or TN-200 USB-type GPS receivers and find them unreliable. We have a Furuno GP-31 Navigator GPS, and two Garmin GPS units. We can wire the NMEA output from any of them to a USB cable, I should think... To my iBook G4 which runs MacEnc. Right? Has anyone tried this? Thanks, Kathy Hill on the sail-assisted trawler Dorothy June. :?

[jagasail]

Kathy,
Don't know about the Furuno, but most Garmin's have data cables available, which can be connected to your ibook with a Keyspan adapter. That's one of the ways I connect my ibook G4 and it works well with MacENC. If the Furuno has a data cable available you can use the same approach with it also.

Scot

[GPSNavX]

Completely disagree with your assesment of the BU-353 USB GPS. I find they work well even inside the cabin (unless of course it has a metal roof)

You cannot directly wire the Furuno GPS output to USB. You have two ways to interface your GPS to a Mac:

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Connect a DB-9 male connector to the bare GPS wires. Pin 2 from the GPS send, and Pin 5 from the GPS ground. Then connect that to a Keyspan USB to serial adapter..

http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/usa19hs/

It may be your GPS Supplier has a cable already made with a DB-9 connector. Garmin certainly offers PC Interface cables for their marine GPS.

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Or if you prefer not to deal with a DB-9 and Keyspan adapter get a Shipmodule Miniplex lite multiplexer which you can plug the GPS (two bare wires) into and 2 other NMEA input devices (Radar, AIS, etc), and repeat the output to up to 4 NMEA output devices (Autopilot).

http://wiredboat.com/news.htm

I like the later choice because it offers expandability.

[kathill]

Thanks Everybody. Multiplexer arrives today - I will let y'all know how it works.
Kathy/Dorothy June