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All modern cell phones have GPS and do not require cell to get a position.
On android phones you can select how your phone gets your position. GPS, Cell and or network.
If you are on the water generally I have found that you have to set it to only use GPS or else it tries to place you on land.

There are even apps that will tell you how many satellites you are getting a signal from and how good the signal is.
I use one called GPS Test.

March,

To answer your question....you do not need a mothership. The gps on your smart phone uses the same satellites in space that are used by all gps units units and chartplotters. It triangulates with the satellites in space. I have also used my phone deep in the everglades where there is no cellular service at all. The gps works fine even when there are no towers or anything else man-made nearby or even when I have my phone on airplane mode, as long as my phone is outdoors and has a line of sight with the sky.
Hope this helps....fair winds.

I decided on Navionics on my iPad. Works great. Used it last night to locate the public ramp at 3 AM on a dark night.

That makes sense. Thanks, guys. I know what my next phone is going to be now.

I hear the Samsung Galaxy 7 is good, amd it doubles as a cabin heater

sailboatmike wrote:I hear the Samsung Galaxy 7 is good, amd it doubles as a cabin heater

Not every iPad or every Android tablet had the GPS chip, but now I think most of them do. Some of the cheapest models might cut back and not have the GPS chip. Don't just assume that it's there.

Phil M wrote:

sailboatmike wrote:I hear the Samsung Galaxy 7 is good, amd it doubles as a cabin heater

Not every iPad or every Android tablet had the GPS chip, but now I think most of them do. Some of the cheapest models might cut back and not have the GPS chip. Don't just assume that it's there.

The cell phone chip has the GPS in it. If you buy one that is WiFi only you will not have a GPS

grady wrote: The cell phone chip has the GPS in it. If you buy one that is WiFi only you will not have a GPS

I believe you are referring to the Apple iPad. Putting GPS in their more expensive models is just another way for Apple to stick it to their loyal customers. The Samsung Android tablets sold at Costco do have a GPS chip in them and they are almost half the price of an iPad with GPS.

I'm not normal...Forewarned.
But i spend my free time looking at Google Earth Images on my phone/PC. PC is better because photos are timestamped.
Anyways I will zoom away for hours scoping waters and inlets, Here in FLA you can basically figure water depth from colors.
Its sort of a hobby of mine and I know where all those sweet spots are...

Following

Only a few Apps support Australian Charts. One of those is i-Boating https://goo.gl/pU2mjZ .... You can pre-download the local charts (so only need GPS working) and it supports SailTimer (a bit). I quite like it but if it weren't for the SailTimer support I would have gone for Navionics.

Just as a follow up to some of the previous comments regarding iPads, cell chips and GPS...

The iPads without cellular service are WiFi only and thus, have no GPS chip. Why? Because they assume the consumer will be on WiFi and not need a GPS chip. I made this unfortunate discovery about three years ago when I bought my latest iPad. I don't need cellular service for $100 more because I use my phone as a hotspot. When I installed my iPad mount in my bay boat, I was all excited as I was going to be able to toss out my quirky GPSMap 198c in favor of a much "sexier" device with Navionics. Wrong.

So it's not a matter of it being a "cheaper model" albeit technically it's true, it's a matter of having a cellular chip inside or not.

taylormade wrote:Just as a follow up to some of the previous comments regarding iPads, cell chips and GPS...

The iPads without cellular service are WiFi only and thus, have no GPS chip. Why? Because they assume the consumer will be on WiFi and not need a GPS chip. I made this unfortunate discovery about three years ago when I bought my latest iPad. I don't need cellular service for $100 more because I use my phone as a hotspot. When I installed my iPad mount in my bay boat, I was all excited as I was going to be able to toss out my quirky GPSMap 198c in favor of a much "sexier" device with Navionics. Wrong.

So it's not a matter of it being a "cheaper model" albeit technically it's true, it's a matter of having a cellular chip inside or not.

And yet the much cheaper Android tablets without cellular do have a GPS chip. Sum Tin Wong here.

taylormade wrote:The iPads without cellular service are WiFi only and thus, have no GPS chip.

I made the same discovery so my Wifi iPad is now being used as a door stop
The GPS chip hardware is actually in there. But Apple like to disable these things .... no way around it

Phil M wrote:
And yet the much cheaper Android tablets without cellular do have a GPS chip. Sum Tin Wong here.

Yeah, you're not going to get me into an Android/Apple argument. I was anti-Apple for decades, even resisting the iPods, but when my CEO came to me and told me (IT Director) that we were going to allow iPhones, I got one and haven't looked back. In fact, I'm typing this on a MacBook Air.

BTW, I'm a big fan of Sum Ting Wong, We tu lo, and Bang Ding Ow.