Handheld GPS / Plotter advice pls

[Giblets]

My Garmin GPS12 still works a treat. Just got to figure out how to wire it to the DSC VHF.

 

[Alcyone]

I have an older Garmin 168 combined chartplotter and sounder, which I used for the best part of 10 years. Very reliable, and would recommend. We recently upgraded to a Lowrance 10" chartplotter/sounder (which I got for a ridiculous price of £450ish from MNC). My Garmin charts for the West coast of the UK cost me around £250 (2 chart sets). My Lowrance ones were, IIRC, around £60 for Faroes to Azores. Also, I have a Lowrance handheld (I think it's called an iHunt, a camouflaged version of the iH20). I can use the Lowrance charts in either plotter. The Garmin charts are tied to the one device.

Both excellent pieces of kit, but chart prices were much better with Lowrance.

As for using/not using. I was recently off the West coast of Wales, in the dark, in fog, and could see no lights. I realised then how much I totally rely on my electronics, and that I should make more of an effort to try and remember my YM chartplotting and position fixing.

The problem is, when the electronics takes away so much of that time consuming process, it's very hard to not just sail, and enjoy it, letting the electronics take care of the nav.

 

[Amulet]

.. My main complaint about Eterex is the small writing...

The Garmin GPS72 allows you to select BIG writing. You can select 4 "fields" for display with small writing and two with big. I can't remember all the possible fields, but they include things like:
Speed
Range and bearing of next waypoint
Cross track error
Velocity made good
ETA at next waypoint
ETA at destination
....and many others

I have little experience with other handhelds, but I assume many others are equally capable.

 

[G12]

I have a Garmin Oregon 550. I had the GPS anyway for Geocaching and decided to get the bluechart for it. It lives in it's cradle down below and plugged in (I can see it from the cockpit though), however when I want it in my hands at the tiller I can just grab it and it will last for hours.
Not a bad bit of kit at all really. If I didn't already own the GPS then I probably would have got a Garmin 556 plotter or a Standard Horizon CP300i though as you can put AIS data on those.

 

[Amulet]

My Garmin GPS12 still works a treat. Just got to figure out how to wire it to the DSC VHF.

Buy this cable. Look at my notes here and in the bottom right diagram you'll see the pin assignments for the Garmin round socket (mirror image for plug!).

Unfortunately I don't know what the colours on the cable are (they might be the same as my notes). You can work out which pin goes to which wire with a multimeter. However, you want to connect the ground of your radio to pin 3 and the NMEA input of your DSC to pin 2. I don't think the radio sends any data so probably no need to connect anything to pin 1 (if there is an a NMEA out this is where to connect it). Set your GPS to send NMEA (somewhere in the configuration menus). I think it might, by default, send the Garmin protocol, which won't work.

If what you have is the old Garmin GPS12, then it takes up to 8 volts I think, and so cannot (easily) be powered from the boat's battery. If it is a Garmin12XL then you can connect the ground (pin 3 again) to the -ve of your battery and pin 4 to the +ve (12 volts). You'll then have it running off the boat's battery.

Years ago I had a GPS 12. It gobbled batteries, so it is worth trying to get it wired in. My GPS72 is at least four times more frugal on batteries.