Nav Pilot 300/ GP1871 functions

[Bright Idea]

I have a NAV Pilot 300 system that is installed and working thru an existing NMEA 2k network. The MFD is Raymarine and the GPS source is an external Raymarine RS 130. The NAV Pilot uses the RS 130 as its source which works fine but I cannot control the NAV Pilot from the MFD. I am considering installing my GP 1871 and running a separate network with just the Nav Pilot and 1871, so as that I have the auto pilot control on the screen as well as the map/plotter features.The existing network would be used as sonar and backup GPS. I can either use the internal GPS antenna of the 1871 or if it would be a better setup I will purchase a Furuno external antenna ? I would like to know if I can expect these two units to work well together and if I will truly have control all of the NAV Pilot features on the 1871 ? All of the published literature leads me to believe that is the case.

 

[Johnny Electron]

If the Raymarine plotter is NMEA 2000, I think I would resolve that because it should be able to drive the pilot. Step one is to get with Raymarine and turn on PGN 129283, 129284, and 129285 so that the steering infomation goes to the NMEA 2000 network. Once on the network, you should go to the pilot setup and choose the Raymarine as the "Nav Source" and you should be setup to drive the pilot in NAV mode from the plotter. Yes the GP1871F can drive the pilot too but no use spending money when you don't have to. Even if the pilot is 0183, it would still work with the proper 0183 sentence via a 0183/2000 converter.