Marine Electronics Consumer Reports

[Binnacle]

Morning all you Wooden Boat Guru's,
Any of you electronics wizzards ever heard of a Marine electronics "Consumer Report" sort of source that one could get honest review's of the landslide of almost instantly obsolete electronics ???
I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop.
Appreciate any input..
Binnacle

[Binnacle]

Morning all you Wooden Boat Guru's,
Any of you electronics wizzards ever heard of a Marine electronics "Consumer Report" sort of source that one could get honest review's of the landslide of almost instantly obsolete electronics ???
I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop.
Appreciate any input..
Binnacle

[Binnacle]

Morning all you Wooden Boat Guru's,
Any of you electronics wizzards ever heard of a Marine electronics "Consumer Report" sort of source that one could get honest review's of the landslide of almost instantly obsolete electronics ???
I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop.
Appreciate any input..
Binnacle

[paladin]

...think of it this way.....water ain't good for electronics....concentrations of water vapor is worse..sea air ain't any better and the botton twenty feet of the air (atmosphere) and the twenty feet immediately above the liquid water surface is a strong concentration of both and hell on electronical stuff.
Stick with a watch and a sextant.....and do a lot of dead reckoning practice.

[paladin]

...think of it this way.....water ain't good for electronics....concentrations of water vapor is worse..sea air ain't any better and the botton twenty feet of the air (atmosphere) and the twenty feet immediately above the liquid water surface is a strong concentration of both and hell on electronical stuff.
Stick with a watch and a sextant.....and do a lot of dead reckoning practice.

[paladin]

...think of it this way.....water ain't good for electronics....concentrations of water vapor is worse..sea air ain't any better and the botton twenty feet of the air (atmosphere) and the twenty feet immediately above the liquid water surface is a strong concentration of both and hell on electronical stuff.
Stick with a watch and a sextant.....and do a lot of dead reckoning practice.

[Dale Genther]

My wife bought me the 176C along with the Blue Chart chip for the Chesapeake area for Christmas. I have not mounted it on the boat yet, so I can't comment on that, but I have walked and driven with it. The color screen seems to be visable in even bright sunlight and the accuracy with the WAAS technology is amazing. The only thing I have found the you should be aware of is that the color screen uses up batteries quite quickly. I would only buy the unit if I intended to hook it up the the ship's batteries.

[Dale Genther]

My wife bought me the 176C along with the Blue Chart chip for the Chesapeake area for Christmas. I have not mounted it on the boat yet, so I can't comment on that, but I have walked and driven with it. The color screen seems to be visable in even bright sunlight and the accuracy with the WAAS technology is amazing. The only thing I have found the you should be aware of is that the color screen uses up batteries quite quickly. I would only buy the unit if I intended to hook it up the the ship's batteries.

[Dale Genther]

My wife bought me the 176C along with the Blue Chart chip for the Chesapeake area for Christmas. I have not mounted it on the boat yet, so I can't comment on that, but I have walked and driven with it. The color screen seems to be visable in even bright sunlight and the accuracy with the WAAS technology is amazing. The only thing I have found the you should be aware of is that the color screen uses up batteries quite quickly. I would only buy the unit if I intended to hook it up the the ship's batteries.

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle,
Practical Sailor is exactly what you want. It comes out bi-weekly, accepts no advertising, and reviews products from electronics to boat shoes to rope to whole sailboats. They are always reviewing the latest electronic stuff, and are not afraid to pan bad products.

Check a library or friend's collection...they do not sell reprints of articles (except boat reviews). They recently reviewed portable GPS/chart plotters, and if I remember correctly, they are not impressed.

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle,
Practical Sailor is exactly what you want. It comes out bi-weekly, accepts no advertising, and reviews products from electronics to boat shoes to rope to whole sailboats. They are always reviewing the latest electronic stuff, and are not afraid to pan bad products.

Check a library or friend's collection...they do not sell reprints of articles (except boat reviews). They recently reviewed portable GPS/chart plotters, and if I remember correctly, they are not impressed.

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle,
Practical Sailor is exactly what you want. It comes out bi-weekly, accepts no advertising, and reviews products from electronics to boat shoes to rope to whole sailboats. They are always reviewing the latest electronic stuff, and are not afraid to pan bad products.

Check a library or friend's collection...they do not sell reprints of articles (except boat reviews). They recently reviewed portable GPS/chart plotters, and if I remember correctly, they are not impressed.

[stan v]

Binnacle, Practical Sailor may not be impressed, but you will be. Have you owned a GPS before? I use mine on the Texas coast, to the East Texas woods for deer hunting. For under $150 you can know where you are at any given moment, to which direction you need to go. You won't be disappointed. I have the Magellan 315. Good luck.

[stan v]

Binnacle, Practical Sailor may not be impressed, but you will be. Have you owned a GPS before? I use mine on the Texas coast, to the East Texas woods for deer hunting. For under $150 you can know where you are at any given moment, to which direction you need to go. You won't be disappointed. I have the Magellan 315. Good luck.

[stan v]

Binnacle, Practical Sailor may not be impressed, but you will be. Have you owned a GPS before? I use mine on the Texas coast, to the East Texas woods for deer hunting. For under $150 you can know where you are at any given moment, to which direction you need to go. You won't be disappointed. I have the Magellan 315. Good luck.

[Mike Keers]

Darn! I wrote a real long reply about five hours ago, complete with quotes from Practical Sailor, and halfway thru the upload, there was a hiccup, the Forum went down, and I lost the whole post, and now that I'm back I see it didn't make it.

Anyway, it seems I mis-soke earlier, PS does sell article reprints thru their website only...I guess you 'buy' a PDF download. I only get the hard copy, so rarely go to the website. http://www.practical-sailor.com

But back to the business at hand, their last review was in the December 2001 double issue (23 & 24), and they looked only at the cartographic handheld GPS's, the Garmin GPSmap 76 ampong them.

Stan, you sort of prove their point...they find no fault with GPS's per se, it's these particular handheld mapping models for marine use.

I had all sorts of quotes and everything earlier, and I ain't got the time or steam to repeat it all, but it comes down to that these units are designed for hikers, hunters, delivery drivers, etc, not mariners. They report the marine info in thses units is simply often wrong, as well as the land maps. It's the equivelent of using automobile road maps for charts.

Now if you step up to a true GPS chartplotter, a fixed mount unit, these use various electronic versions of marine charts stored on little floppies or whatever....that's a different ballgame.

Another fault they find is that the displays on the handhelds are too small to display all the info they are capable of.

In conclusion they simply say these particular hand-held cartographic units try to do too much for too many users, and the marine users are not one of the priorities, as they are with 'marine' units. To give one quote: " The cartographic capabilities of these receivers is minimal and sometimes badly inaccurate or misleading....this will eventually lead to disaster."

The good news is Binnacle, they found the Garmin GPSmap 76 the Best Buy for marine use.

Myself, I'd go with a dedicated marine unit, without the cartographic features, and stick to paper charts. BTW, I own two GPS's, the Garmin GPS12 hand held and the GPS128, the fixed-mount version.

The Garmins have always rated the highest in the PS testing over many years....all the units out there perform pretty much identically, it comes down to user intuitiveness and friendliness really, or brand loyalty. Garmin has treated me well over the years....they replaced my last handheld with a new one when I sent it back for a (free) internal lithium battery replacement.

And on an offshore delivery I made a few years back, we brought four GPS's...my Garmin was the only one still working when we made landfall in Mexico. Two years ago I soloed from Mexico to Hawaii, turned on the Garmin 128 when I left the dock, and shut it off 32 days and 3265 miles later when I pulled into Hilo, it never missed a beat.

[Mike Keers]

Darn! I wrote a real long reply about five hours ago, complete with quotes from Practical Sailor, and halfway thru the upload, there was a hiccup, the Forum went down, and I lost the whole post, and now that I'm back I see it didn't make it.

Anyway, it seems I mis-soke earlier, PS does sell article reprints thru their website only...I guess you 'buy' a PDF download. I only get the hard copy, so rarely go to the website. http://www.practical-sailor.com

But back to the business at hand, their last review was in the December 2001 double issue (23 & 24), and they looked only at the cartographic handheld GPS's, the Garmin GPSmap 76 ampong them.

Stan, you sort of prove their point...they find no fault with GPS's per se, it's these particular handheld mapping models for marine use.

I had all sorts of quotes and everything earlier, and I ain't got the time or steam to repeat it all, but it comes down to that these units are designed for hikers, hunters, delivery drivers, etc, not mariners. They report the marine info in thses units is simply often wrong, as well as the land maps. It's the equivelent of using automobile road maps for charts.

Now if you step up to a true GPS chartplotter, a fixed mount unit, these use various electronic versions of marine charts stored on little floppies or whatever....that's a different ballgame.

Another fault they find is that the displays on the handhelds are too small to display all the info they are capable of.

In conclusion they simply say these particular hand-held cartographic units try to do too much for too many users, and the marine users are not one of the priorities, as they are with 'marine' units. To give one quote: " The cartographic capabilities of these receivers is minimal and sometimes badly inaccurate or misleading....this will eventually lead to disaster."

The good news is Binnacle, they found the Garmin GPSmap 76 the Best Buy for marine use.

Myself, I'd go with a dedicated marine unit, without the cartographic features, and stick to paper charts. BTW, I own two GPS's, the Garmin GPS12 hand held and the GPS128, the fixed-mount version.

The Garmins have always rated the highest in the PS testing over many years....all the units out there perform pretty much identically, it comes down to user intuitiveness and friendliness really, or brand loyalty. Garmin has treated me well over the years....they replaced my last handheld with a new one when I sent it back for a (free) internal lithium battery replacement.

And on an offshore delivery I made a few years back, we brought four GPS's...my Garmin was the only one still working when we made landfall in Mexico. Two years ago I soloed from Mexico to Hawaii, turned on the Garmin 128 when I left the dock, and shut it off 32 days and 3265 miles later when I pulled into Hilo, it never missed a beat.

[Mike Keers]

Darn! I wrote a real long reply about five hours ago, complete with quotes from Practical Sailor, and halfway thru the upload, there was a hiccup, the Forum went down, and I lost the whole post, and now that I'm back I see it didn't make it.

Anyway, it seems I mis-soke earlier, PS does sell article reprints thru their website only...I guess you 'buy' a PDF download. I only get the hard copy, so rarely go to the website. http://www.practical-sailor.com

But back to the business at hand, their last review was in the December 2001 double issue (23 & 24), and they looked only at the cartographic handheld GPS's, the Garmin GPSmap 76 ampong them.

Stan, you sort of prove their point...they find no fault with GPS's per se, it's these particular handheld mapping models for marine use.

I had all sorts of quotes and everything earlier, and I ain't got the time or steam to repeat it all, but it comes down to that these units are designed for hikers, hunters, delivery drivers, etc, not mariners. They report the marine info in thses units is simply often wrong, as well as the land maps. It's the equivelent of using automobile road maps for charts.

Now if you step up to a true GPS chartplotter, a fixed mount unit, these use various electronic versions of marine charts stored on little floppies or whatever....that's a different ballgame.

Another fault they find is that the displays on the handhelds are too small to display all the info they are capable of.

In conclusion they simply say these particular hand-held cartographic units try to do too much for too many users, and the marine users are not one of the priorities, as they are with 'marine' units. To give one quote: " The cartographic capabilities of these receivers is minimal and sometimes badly inaccurate or misleading....this will eventually lead to disaster."

The good news is Binnacle, they found the Garmin GPSmap 76 the Best Buy for marine use.

Myself, I'd go with a dedicated marine unit, without the cartographic features, and stick to paper charts. BTW, I own two GPS's, the Garmin GPS12 hand held and the GPS128, the fixed-mount version.

The Garmins have always rated the highest in the PS testing over many years....all the units out there perform pretty much identically, it comes down to user intuitiveness and friendliness really, or brand loyalty. Garmin has treated me well over the years....they replaced my last handheld with a new one when I sent it back for a (free) internal lithium battery replacement.

And on an offshore delivery I made a few years back, we brought four GPS's...my Garmin was the only one still working when we made landfall in Mexico. Two years ago I soloed from Mexico to Hawaii, turned on the Garmin 128 when I left the dock, and shut it off 32 days and 3265 miles later when I pulled into Hilo, it never missed a beat.

[Donn]

I have a handheld Micrologic unit, which I use only for gross repeatability, speed over bottom, time and distance, and tides. It plugs right into my bottom machine, which has ample display.

I can get back to a BIG spot with the GPS, but for small spots, nothing beats LORAN. My old Northstar 800X can put me back on the smallest hole or bottom feature, time after time. I doubt if even the best DGPS can equal LORAN for repeatability...a key feature for fishermen. I run many traps without surface floats (to keep them away from crooks and props) and the LORAN puts me close enough to spot them on the sounder, and grapple them up.

I also like the waypoint features of the GPS. It's easier to follow a course with it than with the LORAN. A nice feature when you're running a shallow bay like mine, in the fog, and need to stay in a 50' wide channel.

[Donn]

I have a handheld Micrologic unit, which I use only for gross repeatability, speed over bottom, time and distance, and tides. It plugs right into my bottom machine, which has ample display.

I can get back to a BIG spot with the GPS, but for small spots, nothing beats LORAN. My old Northstar 800X can put me back on the smallest hole or bottom feature, time after time. I doubt if even the best DGPS can equal LORAN for repeatability...a key feature for fishermen. I run many traps without surface floats (to keep them away from crooks and props) and the LORAN puts me close enough to spot them on the sounder, and grapple them up.

I also like the waypoint features of the GPS. It's easier to follow a course with it than with the LORAN. A nice feature when you're running a shallow bay like mine, in the fog, and need to stay in a 50' wide channel.

[Donn]

I have a handheld Micrologic unit, which I use only for gross repeatability, speed over bottom, time and distance, and tides. It plugs right into my bottom machine, which has ample display.

I can get back to a BIG spot with the GPS, but for small spots, nothing beats LORAN. My old Northstar 800X can put me back on the smallest hole or bottom feature, time after time. I doubt if even the best DGPS can equal LORAN for repeatability...a key feature for fishermen. I run many traps without surface floats (to keep them away from crooks and props) and the LORAN puts me close enough to spot them on the sounder, and grapple them up.

I also like the waypoint features of the GPS. It's easier to follow a course with it than with the LORAN. A nice feature when you're running a shallow bay like mine, in the fog, and need to stay in a 50' wide channel.

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle has thrown us a curve ball...since I posted the above, my new waste Marine catalog just arrived, and I see the unit he mentions:

"I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop"

In my book I'd call this a fixed mount unit, not a 'portable', in the sense it doesn't have batteries, it uses a power/data cable. I assumed 'portable' meant 'hand-held', but that's what the catalog calls it--more marketing spin I guess. Gee, in that case I guess my old forty pound Icom SSB is 'portable'--I can always undo all the connections and take it home with me. tongue.gif

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle has thrown us a curve ball...since I posted the above, my new waste Marine catalog just arrived, and I see the unit he mentions:

"I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop"

In my book I'd call this a fixed mount unit, not a 'portable', in the sense it doesn't have batteries, it uses a power/data cable. I assumed 'portable' meant 'hand-held', but that's what the catalog calls it--more marketing spin I guess. Gee, in that case I guess my old forty pound Icom SSB is 'portable'--I can always undo all the connections and take it home with me. tongue.gif

[Mike Keers]

Binnacle has thrown us a curve ball...since I posted the above, my new waste Marine catalog just arrived, and I see the unit he mentions:

"I'm thinking of getting a Garmin GPSMAP 176C portable chartplotter , new in the 2002 West Marine catalogue, for my Friendship sloop"

In my book I'd call this a fixed mount unit, not a 'portable', in the sense it doesn't have batteries, it uses a power/data cable. I assumed 'portable' meant 'hand-held', but that's what the catalog calls it--more marketing spin I guess. Gee, in that case I guess my old forty pound Icom SSB is 'portable'--I can always undo all the connections and take it home with me. tongue.gif