Garmin 451 Chartplotter

[Severnman]

Possibly looking at this as a budget replacement for knackered GPS. Would appreciate any views on whether external aerial option required - boat is Foxhound 24 and would be for internal fixing.

 

[Kelpie]

I have a 551 with internal aerial which has absolutely no problems getting a signal, although that's bulkhead mounted in the cockpit.
Maybe you could try using a HH GPS down below and see if it gets a signal?

 

[BruceDanforth]

I have the similar 450 on a hurley 22. It seems to work fine inside without an extra antenna when I use it for the anchor alarm. I think car sat navs pushed the design for internal aerials so they are OK now in fibreglass.

 

[l'escargot]

I've got one of these on my rib. I bring it home and plug it into a battery pack to do waypoints etc and it picks up a signal indoors with no problem so I wouldn't think it would have any trouble inside a boat. Give it a try, you can always buy an external aerial afterwards and connect it up if you need to.

 

[Laundryman]

Garmin 451

I have a 550 as a back up. It works fine with the internal antenna. I also use it paired to a digital yacht ais 100. Easy set up, works great.

 

[Pete7]

I have the 555s, brilliant bits of kit, dim automatically at night so you're not blinded and the built in chart is very good.

Pete

 

[voyager35]

Iv got mine mounted on the chart table on its inbuilt ariel and am really pleased with its performance. The charts it came loaded with seem to be as good as the cmap ones on the main plotter and the anchor alarm (which was the reason i fitted it)works well and is easy to set.
Just connected a fish finder to it so it might even provide supper