Serial Connection

Open the Device Manager and make sure that the Virtual COM port(s) appear under the “Ports (COM & LPT)” category. If they don’t appear (or if a warning appears next to it), disconnect the USB converter, make sure that the latest drivers are installed and reconnect the USB converter. If the driver is still not recognized please refer to the USB Drivers troubleshooting chapter.

Write down the Virtual COM port number (you will need that information for the next step)

Open the navigation software and use the “Port Monitor” on each of the virtual COM port. Look at the NMEA sentence (ex: “$GPGGA”) to determine what type of sensor is connected (GPS, Sounder, etc…). If you see “garbage data” (random text characters), try a different Baud Rate speed (usually 4800 is used for GPS, Sounder, Heading and 38400 is used for AIS but you can occasionally have a device using something else such as 9600). Also try to invert the wire polarity if you continue to see garbage at all Baud Rate. If you don’t see any data, check the wiring.

Use the Connection Wizard Auto Detection first to see if the software will detect the instruments automatically. Use the Manual Configuration (pointing at the Virtual COM port) if you have trouble.

Note: If you have multiple software on the PC accessing multiple COM ports at the same time, do NOT perform an Automatic Configuration in TimeZero  Professional . If you do an Automatic Detection, TimeZero  Professional  will open and use all the active COM ports, preventing the other software to use them at the same time. In this case, configure manually the COM Port in TimeZero  Professional  one by one (configure ONLY the one you want TimeZero  Professional  to use).

If an AIS instrument is connected to the PC, make sure that the GPS/COG/SOG/Heading Master sources are not set to the AIS Port (too slow). Use the Port Priority of Data Source selection and select the real COM port connected to the GPS, Heading… Or uncheck “Position” and “Heading” coming from the AIS port.