My FA-50 stopped transmitting AIS information. I became suspicious when the AIS info for my boat reported by the vessel tracking websites was older than when I last ran the boat. I bought a small AIS receiver (dAISy) that plugs into a laptop and displays AIS targets using a free software app. When close to the boat, is shows nearby boats but not mine. The FA-50 shows the same nearby boats on the TZT14.
I opened the panel covering the FA-50 and noticed that the TX LED never showed blue. It blinks orange fairly continously. According to the manual, that could mean it can't transmit because too many other vessels are transmitting. That isn't likely because in this location there are only a few nearby vessels, they are all class B and they are moored.
I noticed that the FA-50 browser screen "Sensor Status" screen was blank. The FA-50 manual seems to indicate that it should show whether internal or external GPS is being used. Does that mean it isn't getting any GPS data?
The Transponder Test and GPS Test show OK. Alarm Status shows "Nothing Data". The MMSI number in Own Vessel Data is correct. The "Silent vs. Normal" screen shows "Normal(TxRx)".
An antenna analyzer showed that the SWR on the VHF and GPS antennas used by the FA-50 was good (1.20 for VHF and 1.19 for GPS).
The most important question in solving these problem is "what changed"? Between the time it worked and when I noticed it didn't, I was testing the DSC functionality of my VHF radio and the TZT14s. The VHF radio communicates with the TZT14s via NMEA2000 while the FA-50 uses a private ethernet connection to the TZT14s, so I can't see how that could cause the problem, but who knows?
---rick
I opened the panel covering the FA-50 and noticed that the TX LED never showed blue. It blinks orange fairly continously. According to the manual, that could mean it can't transmit because too many other vessels are transmitting. That isn't likely because in this location there are only a few nearby vessels, they are all class B and they are moored.
I noticed that the FA-50 browser screen "Sensor Status" screen was blank. The FA-50 manual seems to indicate that it should show whether internal or external GPS is being used. Does that mean it isn't getting any GPS data?
The Transponder Test and GPS Test show OK. Alarm Status shows "Nothing Data". The MMSI number in Own Vessel Data is correct. The "Silent vs. Normal" screen shows "Normal(TxRx)".
An antenna analyzer showed that the SWR on the VHF and GPS antennas used by the FA-50 was good (1.20 for VHF and 1.19 for GPS).
The most important question in solving these problem is "what changed"? Between the time it worked and when I noticed it didn't, I was testing the DSC functionality of my VHF radio and the TZT14s. The VHF radio communicates with the TZT14s via NMEA2000 while the FA-50 uses a private ethernet connection to the TZT14s, so I can't see how that could cause the problem, but who knows?
---rick