[CA] [CA11] GPS signal to MFD and Autopilot not working

[Jim K]

My E80 Display will not show a GPS location and only shows the current curser location with out lat/lon numbers. I hit the soft key to respond to the ship location from the curser and it will not move to ship location. Also the auto pilot says Seatalk failure. This is a new situation since I brought my boat home. The MFD shows the depth finder and radar to be working fine but I cannot get the plotter portion to work. It is not communicating either through the antennae or Seatalk. Not sure if it is the Antennae or the smart pilot computer. Removed the red wire from the antennae and no change, then removed the yellow wire from the smart pilot controller as suggested from tech support. No improvement either way. all wire terminations look good. I am at a loss as what of to do next. Any suggestion would be very much appreciated.

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Welcome to the Raymarine Forum Jim,

One of the most common causes for this issue is an underpowered SeaTalk bus caused by undercharged batteries and/or powering the SeaTalk bus via the MFD's SeaTalk socket alone (the latter was exclusively intended to power a SeaTalk bus consisting of a GPS sensor alone). Accordingly, the first thing to try is ensuring that the vessel's batteries are fully charged. After doing so and while still connected to shore power / charging system switch ALL of the electronics power circuits on. Should the problem persist, then it would indicate a failure within one or more of the system's devices which have been interfaced to the SeaTalk bus. Please click here to view a FAQ addressing this subject and how to identify the faulty device(s).