GPS & repeater

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Mudhook

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Hi all. I've been absent from this forum for a long tome. Glad to see you're all still at it!

I was considering buying a GPS plotter for my (rather old) boat. However even a mid-range one is a lot of money and it occurred to me that I could - for half the money - have a fixed GPS down below and a cockpit repeater. Anyone tried this set-up? Any comments?

Regards, Mudhook
 
Yes, in fact I had a Garmin GPS72 hand held down below hooked up to a NASA GPS repeater.
It worked well after I added a Yeoman, which meant that my beloved paper charts were still in use.
It seems the Lowrance 3500 is cheap and cheerful, but the cost of upgrading the chart chips is eyewatering.

Yeomans go on ebay for about 170 quid average, and a new Garmin 72 is currently 125 quid. The GPS repeater (I loved it) is about 90 quid.
 
Re: GPS & repeater

Our old Garmin GPS12 lies about somewhere down below - we're too small to have a chart table - and is hooked up to the boat's power supply and to a Silva GPS repeater in the cockpit. It's a solution that works well for us.
 
Re: GPS & repeater

We have the Garmin 152 (when you're hit by lightning you get good kit! or is that when you have good kit you're hit by lightning?) and the Silva repeater - night time display and direct sunlight display is not as good as the Raymarine ST60 instruments - but at £350+ for the Raymarine graphics repeater I thought I'd save us a bundle and go for the £90 model ... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
It is an absolute godsend when short handing as it means you can just set the GPS on down below and forget it - yet when you go down to make a cuppa you can keep an eye on things!
 
The Lowrance is 'only' about £450 with the Nauticpath Chart, and new chart cartridges are about £140 or so. Coupled with Imray charts, it seems like a fairly competitive option.... particularly if the cobbled together option is around £200+

I bought 2 power cables with mine, so I can have it at the wheel, or at the chart table.
 
Hi Mudhook,

Well, you pays your money and you takes your choice;

For a basic fixed GPS and repeater you will pay around £280, for not a lot more you could get a chartplotter.
 
Mud hook has a 27 foot Sabre not a 44 foot Moody. Youre suggestion puts all the eggs in one basket, One fault and you have no GPs and No charts. A small GPS is very reliable and uses almost no power, Chart plotters are hungry. The Yeoman allows you to have the benefits of a plotter but still retain charts. Are you suggesting you dont carry any charts. The Nasa repeater in cheap and cheerful uses very liitle power and if it fails its not the end of the world. Lets get back to basics with this navigation, how did we all manage 5 years ago without Chart plotters, Traffic is no more heavy than it was 5 years ago, perhaps people were better navigators 5 years ago.
 
<<at the price of your yeoman + the other bits, you could have a decent chart plotter and maps of the area. >>

Mark, you are forgetting several things here.
1 Mudhook probably already has charts of his area. Saving a minimum of 149 quid.
2. The paper charts can be updated perpetually for diddly squat. Cost of upodated C Map at least 105 quid. Possibly yearly.
3. Low power consumption on small boat, or throwaway batteries, or recharbeables.
4. Yeoman Sport can used on your knee in the cockpit or down below on the chart table
5. You cant put batteries in a chartplotter, but you can hook the handheld into the ships 12v.
6. Repeater uses standard size instrument space.
7. You could delete the Yeoman and replace it wih a laptop, but you are back to updating charts again.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Mud hook has a 27 foot Sabre not a 44 foot Moody. Youre suggestion puts all the eggs in one basket, One fault and you have no GPs and No charts. A small GPS is very reliable and uses almost no power, Chart plotters are hungry. The Yeoman allows you to have the benefits of a plotter but still retain charts. Are you suggesting you dont carry any charts. The Nasa repeater in cheap and cheerful uses very liitle power and if it fails its not the end of the world. Lets get back to basics with this navigation, how did we all manage 5 years ago without Chart plotters, Traffic is no more heavy than it was 5 years ago, perhaps people were better navigators 5 years ago.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can I take exception to your response?

I could accept your comment re boat types and size if I had suggested a Raymarine E series with repeaters, but the Lowrance is a cheap plotter which brings it within the range of some budget boaters and, if I hadnt mentioned it, I think I would be doing him a disservice, particularly after all the help I have received here.

You will also notice that I put 'only' in inverted commas, and also that I suggested Imray charts, (of which I have all for the areas I sail).

The Lowrance incorporates a 3A fuse, which would suggest that it uses quite a bit less than 3 amps, (not sure what the setup you are suggesting uses). I have a 20Ah Halfords power pack on board which the Lowrance can be attached to in the event of power failures, and this would give say 6-10 hours plotting, (you could turn it on for only enough time to obtain a position if necessary to conserve power, and probably get days of use out of it).

At the end of the day, I was only proposing an option which, for not too much more money, may satisfy Muds' needs.

I think sbc has a fairly small boat, (hence the name), and he tends to champion the Lowrance. I am guessing that his power constraints are similar to Muds'.

As for getting back to hand bearing compasses and RDF.... where do you suggest the line be drawn?

Cheers

Richard
 
[ QUOTE ]
where do you suggest the line be drawn?

[/ QUOTE ]
On the paper chart is a good start! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
where do you suggest the line be drawn?

[/ QUOTE ]
On the paper chart is a good start! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Very ****ing funny, and a bit bloody quick!
 
I have paper charts and a handheld GPS. I can have the GPS at the chart table or in the cockpit. works well for me.
 
Perhaps I should have been a bit more specific about my needs. Priorities would be modest initial outlay, low power consumption, low maintenance costs (chart updates) and decent quality.

I'm afraid that the cheapest plotters are really not worth the candle for me - all right for cycling or hiking perhaps but too small for sensible sailing sailing use. So "for not a lot more more you could get a plotter" isn't really for me.

Specs I examined show GPS consumption at around 100mA and plotter consumption around five times that. Sailing with nav lights, occasional internal lighting and tillerpilot engaged makes an extra half an amp significant but not crippling.

The cost of digital chart updates is a major expense and would be significant on my budget.

At the risk of starting a huge debate you've probably all had before, I should also outline my stance on electronic nav. I've sailed with a lot of this stuff, from handheld to a laptop to a fully-integrated Raymarine set-up with radar overlay (quite brilliant, but at a similar cost to my whole boat!).

There seems to be broad agreement that GPS makes you lazy. Even a YM examiner of my acquaintance says the same (although he can probably afford to get very lazy and still remember how to do 2B pencil nav). In my view, if you are going to work on the basis that the GPS - or its power supply - will always fail eventually, then the best way to be up to speed on old-school nav is to keep on using it. Each time I've had a GPS failure, blind nav and my crumpled pilotage notes have got us to our destination, even in the pitch dark in an unlit channel.

What I'm looking for is a backup to Mk 1 eyeball so that when the fog suddenly comes down I can put a position on the chart and grope home. A fixed GPS seems to fit that bill in the way that Decca used to. I know this may be viewed as very unimaginative use of the magical GPS, but half the reason I go boating is because I really enjoy old-style nav and the great feeling of an accurate landfall or intricate bit of pilotage. Plotter pictures are a very clear and graphic way of observing your position, but they don't add much to my way of sailing.

Anyway, opinion on the forum seems to be very positive on the GPS + repeater option. Many thanks for all the input and suggestions. Keep 'em coming!

These forums are even more magic than the GPS.

Regards, Mudhook
 
i have gone thru the same ideas as you, i ended up with a garmin gps152 and a nasa gps repeater, it seems to work well, i now have a sog, and distance to waypoint, bearing and track, and a simple direction to steer indication, if you put in a route, it will change the route onto the next leg. so although it doesn't give you a nice chart etc, it at least shows you are on the right track... and it is never out of date, which the chart would be as soon as you buy them. some even have the wrong tide details etc....so for about £290/310, you can have a basic system, or as some have mentioned go for a low budget chartplotter, for £430/490...

it depends on your personal choice and the type of sailing you do, if you are away from land alot then gps would be fine, but if you are coastal maybe a chartplotter would be better for a fuller picture of where you are....


one of the sailing mags has got some basics for the gps, and some useful additions to navigation with gps...
 
Re: GPS &amp; repeater

A alternative setup would be with say the Garmin GPS 152 with second mounting bracket and split leads for connecting in the cockpit. That gives you the advantage of having all the facilities of the GPS to hand, and saves fitting a repeater. It could be interfaced with Yeoman Sport, Autopilot etc.
 
Last time I asked Navionics for an update price they quoted £65. Surely you would only update every couple or three years. Paper charts can be updated more regularly for free.

I had a year with GPS and repeater and it was good, but found the change to plotter (the basic Lowrance) a real help. Only a lazy navigator (sometimes me) would rely on it alone. I find it most helpful when sailing singlehanded or with the children as it gives a useful graphical representation whereas the repeater needed me to transfer the numbers to a chart, with all the possibility of errors that entails.
 
1. paper charts cannot be updated perpetually as new editions come out with remarkable frequency. You price an upgrade for C-Map Mega cartridge - personally if I had the chart corrections for about 200 charts, I would willingly pay somebody £100 to do it for me!
2. Low power consumption , then you talk about a laptop! My plotter uses 500mA
3. Like to see you operating the yeoman on your knee in really bad weather!
4. You can drive a repeater from a plotter.

At the end of the day, it is up to everybody to make decisions on how they navigate, in accordance with the system they feel comfortable with. I am a great believer in redundancy (even having a sextant), but for me I am more comfortable making full use of my echosounder and a plotter that I can see at the helm. I have a back up GPS, a full back-up laptop nav system, and I record position, course, and speed in the log every hour. I also have the passage plan marked on a suitable scaled chart.
 
I've done a variant on it this season that works well for me, being generally single (or 'half') handed. The plotter (£199 Raychart 425) lives up top under the sprayhood and is interfaced to a NASA cockpit repeater (so I can have a chart on one & rolling road etc on the other simultaneously) and to the DSC VHF at the chart table so I can plot a paper fix from the lat/long displayed down below. If I need to see the plotter from below I only have to glance up the companionway.
 
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