[TG] [TG11] SeaTalk 1 to MNEA 2000 via ST70

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Harald,

There's no way to control what gets passed by the ST1-STNG convertor: by design it will pass everything that's available and supported on the other network, and there's no configuration for this because we don't want people being able to cause problems by accidentally switching things off. People love to push buttons, for some reason the default setting is always seen as the wrong one.

In a system of ST70 vintage, there is no software support for multiple sources of a particular kind of data, and results will vary if multiple sources of heading, GPS and more are present. Each consuming product's software may handle the situation differently depending on its age and the inclination of its software developer. The source used may be the most recent received, the first received, the one with the lower or higher CANbus address (for NMEA2000), or lower or higher serial number, and so on.

Back in the day, it wasn't expected that people would have multiple GPSes or heading sensors connected. Later, when this became more commonplace, we introduced our Multiple Data Source support, in which the system negotiates and agrees on a single preferred source system-wide. MDS support was introduced in products introduced from late 2011 (Lighthouse a, c, e, eS and gS-series MFDs, i70/p70 and later) but is not present in ST70, SPX pilots etc..

Having products in a system which either produce or consume data which is now handled by MDS source selection (heading, rudder, speed, depth, wind, GPS, datum), but which are not MDS-aware, will prevent/block source selection. This means that you can't do MDS in a system that contains ST70, SPX pilots etc. Don't be tempted to remove the offending item, do an MDS selection and then add it back in again, as this will lead to differing behaviour on the MDS and non-MDS products (e.g. different GPS positions.)

The short answer: unless all the products in the system are i70 vintage or later and MDS-ready, you should stick to only a single source of each kind of data.

Regards,
Tom