ST6001+ NMEA and HSB2 SeaTalk interface

[Greg Lee]

Hi,
First post to the forum and I’ll start with apologies for the length of this note. I’m attempting to put together a bit of a hybrid. We have two boats with Raymarine electronic gear. The one I’m writing about has a pristine, fully functional and cosmetically perfect Pathfinder radar/plotter (RL80C+), L1260+ plotter/sounder and a ST6001+ autopilot. I want to add an AIS transponder and have read all the posts here about why that's a problem so we are adding standalone equipment. We only have room for two displays and I love my Raymarine radar. It works flawlessly so am reluctant to retire the entire system. Since my current gear will not support AIS my plan is to retire the L1260+ and replace it with a computer monitor driven by a micro PC running Rose Point Coastal Explorer. It’s my preference to drive the ST6000+ using the PC and will therefore need to feed the AP course computer NMEA 0183 sentences from the PC to do so. The literature I have appears to so how to make that happen.
Here’s my question. Can I configure the RL80C+ as a backup source to drive the ST6000+? Can I leave the SeaTalk cable in place or do I need to isolate the two sources of autopilot data (PC and RL80C+) with a selector switch? Your thoughts and guidance are appreciated.
Greg Lee
Huntington Beach, CA