How many GPS devices on your boat?

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Toutvabien

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I remember in about 1996 getting my first GPS, a Garmin 45 which quickly transformed our position fixing. Once on-board it was treated almost as an object of veneration. It took ages to get a first fix and, as it was powered by AA batteries, on longer passages it would be switched off between fixes then switched on to confirm a position.

On the boat last weekend I began trying to re-organise and rationalise the navigation set up and had to count the number of gizmos with GPS capacity on Jigsaw, the total was 6, included 2 chartplotters each with their own GPS, VHF radio with it's own GPS receiver, stand alone mounted GPS with external ariel, spare battery powered handheld GPS, and finally a tablet AIS Display with Bluetooth GPS.

On top of this each member of the crew had a smartphone with GPS.
 
Raymarine GPS mushroom that supplies the Seatalk instruments and the main plotter
£25 eBay GPS puck that supplies the VHF and the AIS display
Old-fashioned Garmin GPS128 used with the Yeoman plotter and paper charts
4" Lowrance plotter on the binnacle, with its own GPS receiver
Handheld GPS (and portable echo sounder and loads of batteries) in a sealed tin in the forepeak
Handheld GPS in the grab bag (probably obsoletes the above)
iPhone with Navionics, Imray charts, and an app that just reads out lat and long.

On our cruise to the West Country, with two friends on board each with their own complement of smartphones, iPads, GPS-enabled laptops, etc, we counted 13 GPS receivers in total :)

Pete
 
Matsutec GPS/AIS thingy
Garmin GPS72 as backup
Ancient Samsung Galaxy S phone

and that's the lot, I think. The phone's GPS doesn't really count, though, as it's so slow that it would probably be quicker to write "Where am I please?" on the back of it, put it in a jam jar, throw it overboard, wait for someone ashore to find it, write the answer and chuck it back again and then watch out for it drifting past on its return trip.
 
Two independent plotters each with own GPS
Emergency handheld battery GPS
and now an Iphone .....

Bit different from when I started sailing: no electronics at all on first cruising boat.
 
I only do a couple of thousand miles per year, so I don't really need much help, so I've just got a Garmin GPS that I bought with the boat and which powered a plotter, plus my Raymarine e7 with its own GPS and a Garmin hand-held.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Matsutec GPS/AIS thingy
Garmin GPS72 as backup
Ancient Samsung Galaxy S phone

and that's the lot, I think. The phone's GPS doesn't really count, though, as it's so slow that it would probably be quicker to write "Where am I please?" on the back of it, put it in a jam jar, throw it overboard, wait for someone ashore to find it, write the answer and chuck it back again and then watch out for it drifting past on its return trip.
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You can get a cheap sextant on ebay....;)
 
GPS for Seatalk for auto pilot
GPS for Mini-M and DSC for the VHF
Garmin 75 handheld
PLB

I am surprised no one else has mentioned PLB and EPIRB. Also crew have mobile phones with GPS.
 
I have a Garmin GPS45 of similar vintage to the OP's. I have it powered from the ship's 12Vdc supply, an external arial, and nmea position output to my DCS VHF radio.
Don't ditch the old stuff if it still works.
 
Many more than is sensible, considering that there's a GPS chip in nearly everything these days. Even my camera has one, although due to a firmware bug when displaying the location, it confuses east and west. Good job there, Nikon.

Not that that is any good when the GPS system has failed you (or your tax money is being spent on jamming it). So the more interesting question is, how many alternate methods of determining your position do you have aboard? That includes GLONASS/Galileo/etc. receivers, sextant, hand bearing compass, LORAN-C and of course keeping up with dead reckoning on a paper chart.
 
Porthandbuoy said:
I have a Garmin GPS45 of similar vintage to the OP's. I have it powered from the ship's 12Vdc supply, an external arial, and nmea position output to my DCS VHF radio.
Don't ditch the old stuff if it still works.
Click to expand...

Same here. I found it amongst the boat's clobber when I bought her, powered off the 12V and hardwired it into my new DSC radio.

I also have a Garmin GPS72, and the phone.

And I forgot to mention the Navman B10 Bluetooth GPS puck, that talks to the laptop.
 
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basic garmin 152 gps - used to be used with vhf
vhf with inbuilt gps and ais reciever
ipad with bad elf external gps
iphone
hand held garmin etrex H

so 5 + any the crew bring.
 
Yngmar said:
Many more than is sensible, considering that there's a GPS chip in nearly everything these days. Even my camera has one
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Ooh, good point, my camera also has GPS in it, although I'm not sure whether it can tell me a simple lat and long. It's quite good at coming up with place names which it uses to label the pictures, but many of mine taken under way are just listed as "English Channel" which is correct but not useful :)

Yngmar said:
Not that that is any good when the GPS system has failed you (or your tax money is being spent on jamming it). So the more interesting question is, how many alternate methods of determining your position do you have aboard? That includes GLONASS/Galileo/etc. receivers, sextant, hand bearing compass, LORAN-C and of course keeping up with dead reckoning on a paper chart.
Click to expand...

I'd have a GLONASS receiver or three, because the iPhone (and most other smartphones) use this as well as GPS. Although, if the problem is jamming, then I assume it would probably knock out GLONASS as well.

Otherwise, I have compass binoculars which are good for taking bearings (and I do, from time to time, just to keep my hand in and because I enjoy it). I also have radar, so even with just one landmark I can do a pretty good fix with a visual bearing crossed with radar range. In poor vis I could do a radar-only fix, again preferring ranges rather than bearings because I only have an 18" scanner hence fairly poor beam-width. And let's not forget the depth-sounder, the only instrument in an RYA classroom which never breaks down :p

I always have a chart on the table, generally corrected up to April or May that year (sometimes later), and if we're on any sort of passage then it will have a fix on it no more than an hour old.

Pete
 
I have a SH300i which gives the SH 1500e VHF and AlIS, GPS position, and which also outputs NMEA 0183 to ST60 Muti, which then converts it to Seatalk. This then feeds the Ray Marine ST 2000 Auto pilot. I also have a Garmin 128 which gives the Yeoman GPS, No smart phone here just a bulet proof / waterproof Samsung 2710 with big buttons for old farts¡!! :D
 
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Garmin 72 - never used
Garmin etrex Vista HCX - in my pocket
Garmin 78s - backup
Echomap 42dv - in cockpit
USB puck - AIS transponder
USB puck - computer
HTC Smartphone
ASUS tablet

No sextant...

Oh...forgot the ancient MLR which feeds the VHF...
 
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2x Garmin 128s feeding the nav systems
1x Garmin 72 handheld in the grab bag

There's a new Simrad plotter in a box in the spare bedroom waiting for cockpit install this winter, this has its own GPS

That's it although like everyone else all crew usually have smartphones and we do have five PLBs on board....
 
capnsensible said:
Hope it gives you as much satisfaction as mine have for me.....even I can do the adding up and taking away!. :encouragement:
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I'm looking forward to it. This was not a Scottish summer to take star sights, sun sights or moon sights, though if anyone had ever invented position fixing by gloomy stratus sight I'd have had loads of opportunities.
 
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