Adding Vesper Marine AIS to exiting network

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Bruce,

I doubt that the XB-8000 requires heading data, as it is a Class B AIS transceiver and unlike Class A AIS transceivers, heading data is not among the data items which are broadcast to other vessels. However, the XB-8000's product description also indicates that it is a NMEA 0183 - Wi-Fi / USB communications device capable of communicating not only AIS data, but a number of additional data items, so it is understandable why you may want to interface SeaTalk & NMEA 0183 data sources to the Ship Modul MiniPlex-3USB-N2K MUX and then transmit this data to the XB-8000. It is simply recommended that what ever procedural steps are required to restrict NMEA 0183 transmissions between the MUX and MFD to NMEA 0183 sentences containing heading, rudder angle, and AIS data. Similarly, what ever procedural steps are required to restrict the MUX from transmitting anything other than GPS data (I gather that the new source will be the XB-8000) to the SeaTalk bus. The goal simply is to ensure that data is not looped within the system. Unfortunately, I cannot provide any guidance concerning the details of configuring of third party products.