Connecting (old) tech to iPad

[Boavebof]

Hello all,

I’m in the process of trying to make the most of the tech already on my boat.

I have a Navman Tracker 5600 chart plotter and a Navman VHF 7200 radio that are both sharing the same GPS signal (either through Navbus or NMEA, I haven’t worked out yet)
Due to the position of the Chartplotter, I wanted to set up my iPad as either a second screen for the plotter, or as a standalone plotter using the GPS signal from the boat.

I also have a NASA Target2 sounder and a NASA Target log (and a NASA Clipper log too - neither log works at the moment but I think that Clipper replaced Target but they didn’t bother removing the Target display).
As I replace the instruments, I’d like to have them NMEA compatible and possibly talk to the iPad. Or, more accurately I should say that, as I replace the instruments, I don’t want to rule out the idea of this in the future just by getting the cheapest.

Can anyone tell me what I need to be able to broadcast the GPS signal to my iPad? Also, as a bonus, recommend any budget makes of instruments that I can replace the NASA ones with.

Many thanks

 

[Aquanaught]

I'm not sure about how to get your exisating boat GPS to your iPad, but a simple system I use for iPad without built in GPS is the Garmin GLO bluetooth unit which works very well. GLO™ | Garmin

 

[Sandy]

Can anyone tell me what I need to be able to broadcast the GPS signal to my iPad? Also, as a bonus, recommend any budget makes of instruments that I can replace the NASA ones with.

It might come as a surprise, NASA are the budget ones!

Take a look at using the NMEA 2000 protocol when replacing any instrumentation.

 

[Boavebof]

It might come as a surprise, NASA are the budget ones!

Maybe I should have said "...recommend any OTHER budget makes of instruments that will replace the NASA ones with".

Thank you for the advice.

 

[Boavebof]

I'm not sure about how to get your exisating boat GPS to your iPad, but a simple system I use for iPad without built in GPS is the Garmin GLO bluetooth unit which works very well. GLO™ | Garmin

That looks great. If I end up not being able to send the signal to the iPad then I will look into this. Thank you.

 

[noelex]

I'm not sure about how to get your exisating boat GPS to your iPad, but a simple system I use for iPad without built in GPS is the Garmin GLO bluetooth unit which works very well. GLO™ | Garmin

An external GPS is better in my view for sailing than buying a cellular/Gps equipped iPad.

There are many options for adding a Bluetooth GPS unit. The Garmin GLO is good, but the Dual xgps160 is slightly better (we have both for redundancy).

 

[Boavebof]

An external GPS is better in my view for sailing than buying a cellular/Gps equipped iPad.

There are many options for adding a Bluetooth GPS unit. The Garmin GLO is good, but the Dual xgps160 is slightly better (we have both for redundancy).

I'll check that out too.

I was wondering though, if there is a way to effectively broadcast the boat's GPS information from the chart-plotter on WiFI or Bluetooth via an NMEA plug-in gadget; and how the iPad would receive that information ...

 

[noelex]

I'll check that out too.

I was wondering though, if there is a way to effectively broadcast the boat's GPS information from the chart-plotter on WiFI or Bluetooth via an NMEA plug-in gadget; and how the iPad would receive that information ...

Yes, there are ways to do this. On our system the position from our Zeus chart plotter can be received by the iPad, but this is a more modern chart plotter.

There are accessories such as the those from Yacht Devices that will broadcast NMEA information over wifi that should be able to be picked up by the iPad and could be used with your equipment, but I have never personally used these.

However, there are some advantages in keeping the systems independent.

The combination of a chart plotter and an iPad with a seperate GPS, together with different electronic cartography is better in my view than trying to integrate everything. If the information does not agree from these two independent sources it is suggestive of a problem that needs the skippers attention.

 

[Metalicmike]

Im am also going through a similar process. You will need one of these Multiplexers