(DG) Hooking up Smartpilot x-5 to Simrad Plotter

[dougfrye177]

Hi, I just bought a boat with a Raymarine Smartpilot X-5. The unit works well and I use it all the time. I have 3 questions.

1) Are all those input/output connections on the course computer really workable? I can see NMEA and Sea Talk and Sea Talk (ng) Does ng stand for "next generation", "nice gray", "not good" ????

2) Which input/output on the computer would I best use to connect to my Simrad NSS9 Evo2 Plotter so that I can use the Simrad unit to control the auto-pilot and not have to have both the Raymarine Controller screen and Simrad Plotter taking up space. The Simrad has an NMEA 2000 connection and I am setting up a NMEA 2000 backbone.

3) Could I also use my KVH1000 Autocomp heading sensor with my Smartpilot and not have to have two heading sensors. The KVH1000 output is NMEA 1083 and is used to synch up my radar output.

Thanks in advance for any help. Doug