Garmin NMEA 0183

Garmin pairs decades of GPS heritage with some of the most capable sonar and chartplotting on the water. This is the Garmin nmea 0183 range: the cables and devices for legacy NMEA 0183 wiring.

Browse the full Garmin range or NMEA 0183 from every brand.

Bridging older instruments to Garmin

Garmin's NMEA 0183 range exists mainly to let older instruments, autopilots or radios keep working alongside a newer Garmin chartplotter running NMEA 2000. A device feeding in an 0183 signal, such as an existing autopilot or a legacy radar, generally still needs a converter to translate that data onto the 2000 backbone the rest of the system uses, rather than connecting directly.

Baud rate is worth checking before wiring anything: most 0183 devices run at 4800 baud, but some, particularly older AIS receivers, use a faster rate that a chartplotter's 0183 port needs to be set to match, or the data simply won't be read correctly. Wiring itself uses screened twisted pair, with polarity that matters more here than on NMEA 2000, so getting positive and negative the right way round on both talker and listener avoids a common source of no-data faults.

Not sure whether your existing instrument needs a direct connection or a converter to reach a new Garmin display? Ask us before you wire it in.