Making Connections Overview

Many of the features in MacENCx64 are enabled by making connections from onboard systems and devices to your Mac. Depending on what equipment you have on your vessel and how or if they are interconnected will determine how you will connect your Mac. The age of your Mac and that of your devices will also determine how you can connect them.

Let’s start with your Mac:

Modern Macs do not have DB9 Serial Ports, only USB ports. If your devices have only serial connections, then you will need a Serial to USB adapter (see below).
Macs before 2015 will have USB Type A ports.
Newer Macs will have USB Type C ports. Many devices will have USB-A and you would need an adapter or cable that supports multiple USB standards.
All Macs support standard Ethernet, Wifi, and networking protocols (TCP/IP)

Note: Macs support bluetooth; however, Apple deprecated the bluetooth serial interface in macOS 12.x (Monterey). GPS and any Marine specific bluetooth devices are no longer supported.

Your boat’s systems:

Vessels come in all ages, sizes, and prices and can range from zero devices and instruments to a fully loaded and networked NMEA2000 bus with a WiFi bridge.

They can also come with a mix of technologies added over time, some stand-alone, others on older shipboard networks, some with older NMEA0183 and newer NMEA2000 devices connected via a gateway.

Various general connection options:

Connection	Driver	Port name	Recommended Rate (Baud)	Use
Yacht Devices NMEA 2000 USB Gateway YDNU-02	N/A	usbserial-XXX	115,200	NMEA2000 network to USB-A
Yacht Devices NMEA 2000 Wi-Fi Gateway YDWG-02	N/A	N/A	N/A	NMEA2000 to WiFi (TCP/IP)
Yacht Devices NMEA 2000 Ethernet Gateway YDEN-02	N/A	N/A	N/A	NMEA2000 to Ethernet (TCP/IP)

The above from Yacht Devices and equipment from these other manufacturers have been tested with MacENC: ShipModul , Digital Yacht .

Communications Protocols

MacENC supports TCP/IP networking protocols. Specific nautical protocols are defined by the The NMEA, which stands for National Marine Electronics Association, is committed to enhancing the technology and safety of marine electronics through installer training and interface standards. NMEA members promote professionalism within the marine electronics industry.

Two NMEA standards are supported:

NMEA 0183 (Native Support): Used worldwide across many industry segments. The standard defines electrical signal requirements, data transmission protocol and time, and specific sentence formats for a 4800-baud serial data bus. Each bus may have only one talker but many listeners. This standard is intended to support one-way serial data transmission from a single talker to one or more listeners. This data is in printable ASCII form and may include information such as time, position, speed, water depth, etc.
NMEA 2000 Standard (Via bridge devices such as noted above): Contains the requirements of a serial data communications network to inter-connect marine electronic equipment on vessels. The standard describes a low-cost moderate capacity bi-directional, multi-transmitter/multi-receiver instrument network to interconnect marine electronic devices. It is multi-master and self configuring, and there is no central network controller. Equipment designed to this standard will have the ability to share data, including commands and status with other compatible equipment over a single channel. It is based on CAN (Controller Area Network). All NMEA 2000® products must be certified by NMEA. Although this standard is 50 times faster than NMEA 0183, it is not intended to support high-bandwidth applications such as video. NMEA 2000® represents the cumulative efforts of the NMEA 2000® Standards Committee, a committee of multi-national industry and government subject matter experts and professionals who have contributed time and expertise to the development this standard. IEC 61162-3 references NMEA 2000®. NMEA 2000® is a registered Trademark of the National Marine Electronics Association.

Detail Messaging Supported per Standard

NMEA 0183 Sentences

Data Type - Description
$_APB - Autopilot
$_BOD - Bearing and origin to waypoint
$_BWC - Bearing and distance to waypoint
$_DPT - Depth
$_DBT - Depth
$_GGA - Global Positioning System Fix Data
$_GLL - Geographic Position, Latitude / Longitude and time
$_GSA - DOP and active satellites
$_GSV - Satellites in view
$_GSS - Satellites in view
$_HDM - Heading
$_HDT - Heading
$_HDG - Heading
$_MTW - Water temp
$_MWV - Wind
$_RMB - Recommended minimum navigation information
$_RMC - Recommended minimum specific transit data
$_RTE - Route list
$_RSD - Radar
$_TLL - Radar target
$_TTM - Radar tracked target
!_VDM - AIS receiver
!_VDO - AIS transponder
$_VHW - Speed and Heading
$_VWR - Wind
$_VWT - Wind
$_VTG - Track Made Good
$_WPL - Waypoint location
$_XTE - Cross Track Error
$_ZDA - UTC Date