How can I transfer waypoints to a Raymarine GPS?


Harold H. asks:
quoteI have a Raymarine DS500, I would like to get information from my GPS Eagle intellimap 320, to display on the Raymarine, I see there is a plug in back of the GPS that is not used it has 2 pins in between the power and the transducer hook up. There are wires. Ray marine says NMEA +input is white, NMEA input – is Green. Do i need to get special adapter? Can it be done?quote

How to Transfer GPS Waypoints to a Raymarine Chartplotter

Many people contact me asking if there is a way to take GPS data from an older GPS receiver and transfer it to a new chartplotter or updated GPS in their boat. ExpertGPS doesn’t officially support GPS receivers other than Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance, Eagle, and MLR, but there’s a trick you can use to send waypoints and routes over NMEA to many other brands of GPS receivers, especially ones intended for marine use.

The MLR SP24 XC model in ExpertGPS uses NMEA to transfer waypoints and routes. So, if you tell ExpertGPS that you have this GPS, and then click Send to GPS, it will send NMEA waypoint messages (those are the ones that start with $GPWPL, such as $GPWPL,4807.038,N,01131.000,E,WPTNME*5C
) down your serial cable. With any luck, your GPS will recognize this standard NMEA message and import the waypoint data into its memory.

Give it a try – if it works, it works. If not, you can always contact Raymarine or your favorite marine GPS manufacturer, and ask them to release a public programming API so that programs like ExpertGPS can send and receive waypoints, routes, tracks, and POIs to and from your device. Garmin, Magellan, and Lowrance have all released these APIs, which is why ExpertGPS can transfer data to any of these GPS receivers.