AIS hookup to e95 - Standard Horizon Matrix GX2200 - Wire help

[Rdubs]

Hi Chuck and team
Apologies for resurrecting this thread but had an update. I let this sit for a while but finally bought the Actisense NGW-1-AIS with STNG adapter cable. As everyone knows this module converts the NMEA0183 to NMEA2000 format which can then be interfaced with the Raymarine network. I finally figured out what I think is the correct wire hookup to the VHF radio (there are four different configurations in the manual and it isn't clear which to use), which was to take the grey wire from the GX2200 and connect it to the red wire on the Actisense, then connect the brown wire from the radio to the black wire on the Actisense. So the setup from page 19 in the manual. When I did that and turned on the radio, the Actisense began flashing, which I hope is a good sign that it's seeing a signal.

I went to the e95 display and went into diagnostics. From the list of sensors/input, I saw one labeled "NMEA2000/NMEA0183" or something like that which I don't remember being there before. I also went to a screen labeled "Interfaces" and three things showed up" NMEA0183-1, NMEA0183-2, and N2K/STng. The N2K/STng one shows that data was both being sent and received, but the NMEA0183-1 shows only that data was being sent. The NMEA0183-2 showed nothing. Sorry for that long preamble, but my question is, is there a way to know, now that the Actisense converter is installed (which I think allows two-way communication as opposed to just a feed into the NMEA0183 port on the back of the MFD), is there a way to know if the AIS data interface is working in the absence of any vessels which have AIS? Your most recent response is related to this but we had been talking about using the NMEA0183 port on the back of the MFD, and now I have used the Actisense module to interface into the Raymarine network so not sure if that is different.

Kind regards
'Dubs