I got the Standard Horizon GX2100 VHF/AIS/RAM mic and 300i chartplotter installed this week and it was fairly straightforward though time consuming. Here's what was involved.

Started by trying to find a route for cables into the binnacle. I had to install the cable for the remote RAM mic and a cable to connect the chartplotter at the helm to the VHF at the nav station for data. I had 25 feet of cable with the RAM mic and used Cat5 outdoor network cable for the GPS/VHF connection (this is 4 twisted pairs). This cable is suitable for direct burial outdoors and it is double jacketed, shielded and grounded. I asked SH about using Cat5 cable for this and they said it was fine as long as it was waterproof, which this stuff is.

The starboard leg of the support hoop was full of wiring but the port leg was empty, in fact it had never been drilled through from below. So I did some measuring and figured out where it was from below, then drilled a small exploratory hole which was on the money so I drilled a bigger hole. We have the narrow/wide binnacle with the 4 instruments mounted up high, I took the face of it off and drilled a couple of holes from it into the port leg of the support hoop. I wanted to fish the cables through from the binnacle down but that was impossible, I could not get the end of the fish tape through at the top. So I ended up running the fish tape down twice and I brought each cable up separately and each out a separate hole into the binnacle. I had to cut the installed end off the RAM mike cable to be able to fish it through which meant a splice later on.

Then I started looking for routes to run the cable, there are 3 conduits in the aft cabin, starboard side, two of them have 110 volt lines, the bottom one was 12 volt stuff, I fished the lines through the bottom 12 volt one. That got them into the hanging locker of the aft cabin. It then became apparent for sure that the RAM mic cable supplied was not going to be long enough, so I had to cut and splice that end of it as well. That meant a total of 3 splices of 8 wires each just for the RAM mic, plus two more of 4 wires each for the VHF/GPS data cable.

Doing these splices was the most time consuming part of the project, these wires are so small and easily damaged. A real PITA. I was not happy with crimp on connectors and ended up soldering them. Each solder joint was covered by glue lined heat shrink tube, then the whole bundle of 8 was covered by another glue lined heat shrink tube. Ugly but hopefully secure. Repeat 3 times.

I then followed the route for the wires used by the factory to get them from the hanging locker up into the nav station power panel. The RAM mic end just screws into a dedicated port on the back of the VHF so once the end was spliced back on that was it. But the GPS/VHF interface of cables was another splice job, they are just bare wires coming out of the back of the VHF.

I wanted to be able to disconnect this if necessary so I used male/female bullet crimp-on connectors. However, I am not happy with this, these connectors fit together so tight that you end up destroying them or the tiny wires when you disconnect them. I am going to change this to a terminal block mounted on the forward wall of the power panel area.

The connections between the VHF and GPS were straightforward but because each colour has the same purpose at both ends it is counter-intuitive. You intutitively want to connect the blue VHF line to the blue GPS line, which is wrong because blue is an input at each device, so blue ends up going to some other colour, in this case I believe it was brown. Green is the only one that is always connected to green, it is NEMA common.

The wiring diagrams supplied were easy to use and while the 300i chartplotter has 5 available in/out ports, I only needed two so that meant just 4 wires to connect. The VHF/DSC is on Port 1 and requires an input and an output port at the GPS end, the VHF/AIS is on Port 2 but that only goes from AIS to GPS and not the reverse so it only needs in input port at the GPS end. With 5 available ports you can connect a lot of stuff to this GPS. There is also an input for a video camera!

I made a mount out of 3/4" oak blocks for the GPS and RAM mic to attach to and bolted that to the existing binnacle instrument case. I ran the supplied GPS power/data cable into the back of that case, along with the plug for the RAM mic. I got power for the GPS from the existing ancient Garmin GPS repeater in there, that is switched from the nav station. Then I wired the data wires from the GPS to the Cat 5 extension cable.

Standard supplies a 2 amp fuse that they want put in the ground line of the power side, this to protect the NEMA circuits. I didn't like it, weird little fuse, so I put a more conventional 2 amp fuse holder in there that I already have fuses for.

Turned on the power to the VHF first and it was fine, heard some CG/weather broadcasts though of course without a masthead antenna. Then the GPS and likewise it booted up quickly and got satellites faster than any GPS I've ever seen. Then I connected the VHF/GPS cables and powered both devices up and the VHF came up displaying the Lat/Long from the GPS. I had to change one setting in the GPS on Port 2 from the fish finder to AIS 38400 and that was it.

That took a day and a half of work, mostly due to all the splicing of the little tiny wires. I have no idea yet if the AIS part is working since without any targets nothing happens, but I have no reason to believe it isn't working. It may be a while before we know because there is no big shipping were we are. Once we get out onto Lake Ont. we should see stuff, there are always 4 or 5 AIS targets near Kingston showing on the web so we'll find out later this year.

All in all, it wasn't too bad, just wish there was a better way to splice those wires. Standard Horizon should give options for longer mic cables and/or sell the cable if you need to extend. I tried that avenue first but they don't offer the wire which is why I ended up using what I did. Plus maybe 8 terminal plugs which can handle these small wires.

One other odd thing. When we got some rain it was apparent there was a leak at the base of the port support hoop leg. You could see daylight when looking up from below in the aft cabin. There is no leak at the starboard side and no light visible there. There must be some type of seal in there and I'm guessing that at the factory they didn't install the one on the port side since it wasn't drilled through. I fixed it with a bead of Sikaflex sealant, though I don't like that fix. I've never had that type of installation apart so have no idea how they seal the SS tube in the mounting base on the sole of the cockpit. Possibly an o-ring? At any rate, I hate that because that floor is cored and a leak can go unnoticed because of the cover in the aft cabin which is a recipe for a potential big problem.

I think it's a pretty slick system overall and now need to spend some time reading the manuals to actually put all this to use.