MacGregorSailors.com

I know this is an old debate and there is much on the subject of what navigation system to use. Presently I have a Garmin Etrex GPS hooked to a laptop. As has been pointed out this can be most inconvenient to see the computer screen, where do you put it. I have seen the ideas of mounting a LCD screen in the companionway but have been told that in the sun it is hard to see not to mention so far away from the pedestal. I have thought about mounting it to the pedestal but how do you protect it always comes to mind. It is becoming decission making time since the GPS I have is not that accurate and would function better as a backup.

I am considering the Garmin 76cs but am concerned with the small screen size and dependency on expensive maps for each area we travel.

The other option is a PPC like Duane uses. Duane, how do you dind the visibility in sunlight, size of screen and quality of maps (raster destortion)? My laptop has Cmap which is a vector based mapping. Should I go PPC or Palm operating system? What brand and unit would you recommend? There is a unit from Dell with GPS for about $1200.00 CDN pasos? I see HP has a good looking unit as well for about $500-600 CDN. plus GPS. What GPS do people us in conjunction with something these units? My present one only tracks 4 satelite. How are the maps on Marineplanner.com. I live in Vancouver Canada thus need a chart of the Gulf Islands / San Juans.

It is had to know which way to go but having the screen or GPS at the helm is a priorityas my memory doesn't last from the laptop down below to the helm.

This is a great site for information and I appreciate you help.

How about.....

A cheap printer connected to your laptop? b/w printout for the next mile or so, leave your laptop below, and place the printout in a plastic sleeve. Use a permanent marker or whiteboard marker depending on your preference, to mark your position as you go. Then your laptop/screen stays dry, your location / chart goes with you everywhere, and glare is avoided (maybe get a matt sleeve to prevent reflection). And the laptop GPS still plots your course so you can check from time to time that you're on track. And the hard copy might solve the memory problem.

I've been puzzling over this dilemma too. But with all the inshore sailing I've done, we leave the charts below (paper charts) and sometimes have a protected small copy with us in the cockpit.

Of course, this gets more awkward in fog or at night, when you want some nav equipment close by, but at those times I imagine glare might not be a problem!

cheers
Phil.

I offer the following

1 I use handheld GPS (Garmin 76CS) which can be mounted on either the helm or down below. Either way it talks to the VHF. From down below I can plug my GPS into the Computer and plot from down below. I have run a long USB cable up to the helm and I could interface the GPS to the PC from the helm, but I havent done this mod yet (routing wire nicely, etc.)

2 If I am singlehanded I bring the GPS up - I dont see how you can go below for a navigation check in any kind of decent sailing condition but that just might be the sailing conditions I do. If you have crew, of course, you ask for help with position check.

3 Heres an idea. Buy a cheapie 15 inch LCD monitor, ziplock bag it, and mount it on the table in front of the helm. Now plug this into the aux monitor port on the PC down below.

-PC stays dry
- You can see track from helm
- LCD doubles as a movie theater for DVDs down below
-If you are using the handheld at the helm, you have control over the GPS - in short, you have used the PC to generate an external monitor port from your GPS, in a manner of speaking.

Stephen

You guys are trying to re-invent the wheel IMHO. My chartplotting GPS (Garmin 176C) is waterproof, floats, is backlit for the dark, and is on the helm always ready for an emergency. Sure, it would be nice to have a GPS connected laptop down below as well, but this doesn't negate the need for the GPS at the helm....unless, you always sail in the exact same place over and over and know all the attributes (depths, channel markers, etc.) by memory.

But when you are in new territory, having a decent chartplotter at your fingertips is no longer a luxury IMO. For the money, it is one of the most important safety devices on the boat. For example, both of these situations have happened to me in the not-so-distant past.

1. You are in a new area, pretty far from the shore, and your CB starts bumping the bottom. Looking around, it is not obvious where the shallow water is and where the deep water is. You are already hitting ground and there is a good wind behind you (making it impractical to back out), you have no time to fiddle with a PC down below...I immediately hit the "zoom in" button on my GPS and see the depth contours around me within seconds. Deeper water to my port side so I immediately head in that direction and get out of trouble.

2. Due to an improper bridge opening timing, got stuck out on the ICW one night in a pitch black (and misty) night...no moon. On the way to a Marina I had only been to one time...in daylight..and it is a twisty set of channels to get in there. I had absolutely no idea where the channel markers were but I knew they were very close around me. Visibility is about 10 feet without a spot light. All my crew is asleep so I can't borrow some "better young eyes"...ie, no one to put out on the bow to spot the markers. But the GPS saves my butt again...having very accurate positions of the markers, I identify them on the GPS, then shine a spot light to the physical marker for concurrence...Navigating at least a couple dozen markers, the GPS is right every single time and we safely make it to the marina. Just that one night made the $550 bucks ... money very well spent!

As long as you're looking at the 176C, consider the 188C, Garmin. I, too, went this route and have no regrets. You will need to purchase the appropriate Bluechart Chip for your area; mine of the Great Lakes was excellent. Nice thing about this tool is that it combines so many functions and is small enough to fit the top of the pedestal and yet large enough to have a good chart plotter view of the area you are in. It also serves as the depth sounder/fishfinder, water temp and speed if you add on the speed impeller, can drive an autopilot if you add that later. The color screen has been upgraded and I found it to OK in sunlight. Check it out.

I decided to go the "Duane" route. Primarily for flexibility. I didn't want to spend x amount of dollars for GPS/Charting for the boat and have to do something else for the car/hiking/etc.

I just purchased a Dell Axim 50 barnburner turbo model. I am adding to this a CF GPS which also comes with a bluetooth slipper. Look Ma, no wires.

This will allow me to position the GPS to the best location wherever I use it as well as letting me use the PPC and laptop as I choose. I can also use pretty much any choice of mapping that I choose.

Many thanks to Duane for the idea. It was his descriptions of this setup that put the grain of sand in my original thinking of a standard GPS/Chartplotter. No matter how much I looked and drooled over the Garmin 178C, or even the more expensive Lowrance units, I kept coming back to the PPC.

Dave

Dimitri - you are right on imho - in adverse conditions (night, weather, unknown, or any combination of the above) a good GPS at the helm is required.

Where I sail, I wouldnt trust chart depths - in river sailing there is so much shoaling and local depth variation from month to month (week to week) that I doubt any commercial chart is updated enough to know where that 10 foot contour rolls to the 4 foot contour.

But...its better than nothing, or trying to go below to fuss with windows....and, like your example where you had to make a quick decision on which way to turn it paid for itself.

I have tried this with my old Garmin 45XL backup (before I got my 76CS)

I entered in the last mile of channel marker buoys as waypoints as I approach my slip, to see if I can navigate by GPS to within one boat length of them, staying out of the shipping channel of course.

Im playing scenario of returning home in fog down to 26 foot visibility. I usually play this game every time I return to slip, which makes me pretty confident I can pull it off in the real thing.

When I went to Nantucket this summer, I picked up a mooring at Woods Hole Yacht Club, which fogged in one morning. I had loaded my mooring into the GPS and had no trouble (even with just a single waypoint) working through the boat field back to my mooring. Visibility was probably 100 feet or so, so not as bad as my scenario above. Boats all look the same in fog, dont they???

Practicing with whatever technology you buy is important, imho, so you learn how to quickly translate the screen movement to boat movement.

....and the prudent mariner never relies on a single source for navigational information....(unless thats all you have!!)

You really have listed the two choices given you won't accept going below for a laptop (I won't) and you want the instant convienience of a chartplotter rather than messing with paper charts in the dark.

For me the PPC or Palm route is ideal first because I already owned the handheld, and second because it gives more flexibility in the long run. In it's Otter case it is just as waterproof as any of the dedicated units and it floats as well although it's never going over the side because it has a tail that hooks it to the fixed GPS. (Note that Otter is just introducing a new case, the 1900 series, that is more compact with easier cable access than the one I have.) Mine is the 3600 series.

My generation of the PPC has a great daylight viewable (the brighter the sun is the brighter the screen is) reflective TFT screen. It is what is known as quarter VGA resolution 240x320 (I use it sideways with screen rotating software). This is certainly as high or higher resolution and size than the Garmin handhelds. It has full backlight control so it can be dimmed at night. With the right software it also can switch to night mode with a color set that is easier on your night vision.

If I was buying new I would only consider the new VGA (480x640) resolution PPC's such as the HP 4700 or the Dell Axim X50v. The Dell is a great deal at $449 right now while the HP is still $599. This resolution blows away every handheld dedicated GPS unit made and most fixed units. Charts will look fantastic on them. Likewise in the Palm world I would really only look at the Palm Tungsten T5 with it's 320x480 screen and only $399. Both have software built in now to rotate portrait or landscape.

The choice is really one of those apples to oranges things, Mac or PC. I prefer the PPC because of it's compatibility with all the other stuff in the PC world. There are also more choices of charting software for the PPC than the Palm.

That brings us to what I see as a main advantage of using a handheld. You can choose the chart platform and the chart application that has the features you want. Buying a Garmin locks you into their software and their charts.

I chose raster charts over vector. Both are available for the PPC but all the vector ones still lack detail I expect to see (this is also true of the Garmin Bluecharts). I went with Softcharts because I like their color better than BSB charts and could get a low cost set at MarinePlanner.com, although I must say I like the colors on the Canadian raster charts I got last summer even better (You may find region P1 gives you all the charts you need. It covers from the north tip of Vancouver Is south through the San Juans). Note that MarinePlanner.com only sells US charts. Provided you get a good set of both large and small scale charts you will have no issues with resolution and readability. Don't skip a good set of harbor charts.

Once you have a set of charts you can choose an app with the features you want. For years I used Memory Map which served it's purpose much like a Garmin would but lacked many bells and whistles I wanted. This summer I switched to Ozi Explorer which added better support of my old GPS and new autopilot, does auto chart selection as you cross areas where a more detailed chart is available as well as many other new capabilities. Down the road I'm sure other apps will leapfrog the current ones and offer new must have enhancements. I can just switch the app, use the same chart set and take advantage of the improvements. This is something you won't be doing with a Garmin handheld or fixed unit. You are stuck with what they offer today. For the latest thing you have to throw out the old and buy new hardware and possibly new charts.

Also consider the added versitility of the handheld solution. Besides charting I have tide software; Logbook capabilities; spreadsheets say for mileage tracking; of course the calendars and contacts. I've even scanned waggoneer cruising guide pages into PDF format and put them on the PPC with pocket Acrobat. Plus in port with a PPC that has wireless I can use pocket explorer to surf the web and get email. I also use my PPC extensively for books on tape from Audible.com . I can fire up a book in the background on the PPC, put on the headphones and enjoy the cruise while the PPC tracks the chart on the screen. It can make a long passage much more pleasurable. Try to do all that on your Garmin.

You may still find you bring along the Laptop, and this will let you sync any and everything you want or need back and forth. I really don't find the laptop necessary from an operational sense, but with it's 15" widescreen it is best for DVD movies and also lets us clean the camera cards of pictures on longer trips.

You would want to make sure if you go with a CF or SD GPS in the handheld that it still works well when in a case. I can't speak to this. Mine uses my old Lowrance GPS that came with the boat and also works great with my cheap ETrex as a backup and in the car. This also another advantage of the PPC. I added full US street maps with Streets and Trips for $29. I also have a set of Topo maps for the PC and the PPC and with the Etrex it plots great when camping and hiking. You can get all the USA Topo's free off the internet.

I think Duane's concept is the best...most versatility, easiest upgrade, cheaper maps, etc. I have an older laptop in the cabin, and a USB-Serial that allows me to use my etrex...haven't chosen the handheld computer yet...but the Dell 50 looks good. I use a 17" LCD Monitor/TV...made a reversable swing-away mount that I can hang on either the forward passageway lip, or on the aft edge of the sliding hatch cover. This allows good TV/Navigation viewing from inside...or I hang it on the aft hatch edge..and point it to the helm.... We're talking big screen here! I use the Fagawi marine software on the laptop, and the free vector maps from the feds. I also have free USGS 71/2 topo quads...OK for uncharted lakes etc. Fagawi also exports files to the handhelds ...maybe could bluetooth would as well. My custom mount uses a couple SS wingnuts...so moving it is easy. The mount is light PVC, a brass door hinge, etc. I expect in foul weather, I would lean to the addition of a handheld. BTW, I use a VCR/FM unit for DVD feed, and a mast-top amplifier disc for local signal.
The LCD's choke when below 45 deg F or thereabouts.

I've used my PPC many times out in weather down to freezing and have had no problems with the display.

I have a Garmin 188C and love it. Each person has their hot-ticket items though:

- I had no desire to use it in the car or hiking.

- I have an older hand-held and a chart in a plastic sleeve for backup.

- I am willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of an all-in-one manufacturer solution (i.e. Bluecharts) as opposed to doing all the research, installation, etc. myself.

- AndyS

Great deal on the Dell Axim 50v right now. Look on www.techbargains.com.

Axim X50v 624Mhz 64MB PDA with 480x640 screen $499.00 - auto 10% off - $40 coupon = $409.10 shipped free

Unfortunately, I live in Texas so I had to pay the additional $35 sales tax. But what a sweet deal.

Great site for saving money on techie goodies.

Thanks for all your responses. I do like the chartplotter but I am leaning towards Duane's solution as well. The Dell Axim X50v certainly is a front runner. Has anyone purchased the Dell GPS package? How is it? If not a good system what would be a suggestion for a GPS. What is meant by the "CF or CD" GPS. Duane, does your system have a anchor dragging warning feature?

Hey Southwind....check this link for details on the Fugawi Marine software...they include all current ENC charts, as well as detailed street charts for U.S. or Canada, etc. The software does have anchor alarm, as well as handheld export features. I understand the US Military uses this stuff for some applications. I have found it to be friendly and effective, however, I have not had an opportunity to experience the coastal software...it is vector, and has the full official content of all types.
http://www.fugawi.com/docs/marineenc.html yeah ..alright you computer types...this is easier linking for me anyway.

It's CF or SD GPS. The 50v has two memory card slots, a Compact Flash (CF) and a Secure Digital (SD). You can get GPS's in both these formats. I have both these slots on mine as well. I find I prefer the SD slot for memory cards, it's faster than the CF slot so I would use a CF GPS if I went to an internal one. Note that while both of these formats are card based, neither of them fits the entire GPS internal to the PPC. There is still a portion of the GPS card that sticks out the top of the PPC and you would have to allow for this in any case. There are also some card based GPS's that include both the card and additional memory (usually 128Mb) in a single unit. You can keep the charts on the GPS card.

Another option you would have with the 50v which has Bluetooth wireless as well as WiFi is a Bluetooth GPS. This would allow you to send the GPS info to the PPC without having to worry about cases, wires or clear locations. You could place the bluetooth GPS in a protected central location and then go anywhere in the boat with the handheld in it's case, no strings attached. Put the GPS in a zip lock bag and velcro it up in a dodger window. Note that you may still end up needing a power cable to the Handheld from a 12v outlet for long term use. The new 1900 series Otter case would make this easy to get to.

These are also nice in a car, you can just set them on the dash and the PPC can be anywhere convienient in the vehicle.

Here is an example of one:
http://www.tomtom.com/products/category ... Language=4


There are many others to choose from. Take a look at
www.mobileplanet.com for more card based and wireless GPS options.

Ozi Explorer does have a anchor alarm, but I have never used it. I usually have the nav gear off when at anchor.

Something else to consider as far as software is Maptech's Outdoor Navigator. It's quite a deal and they now have apps for both the Palm and the PPC OS. For $19.95 you get the handheld app and access to every marine and topo map in the US. You can download ALL the charts you want. It's an annual subscription but even if you let it expire you can still use the maps and charts you have downloaded, you just can't get new or updated ones. It is a handheld only solution, there is no PC component other than storage for charts and the hot sync app. All planning and use has to be done on the handheld, but with the big VGA screen that shouldn't be too bad. It's the best deal by far for software and charts.