Navigation data in cockpit

[aod]

Re: Ray Marine

Weeeeel............................not really their fault if you think that having sold a load of crap for an age for example the good old ST50s which leak like cullinders and corrode like buggery yet cost a small morgage that the old company sold out to the new company who doesn't carry any liability for the old company.

Still heard lots of good stuff about the ST60s so bought one and sure enough it lasted more than one season but not more than two which was a 200% improvement on the old ST50s for which they are of course not responsible for.

Truth is they are all fine until they get wet, which I suppose a cockpit instrument might if it's outside like it should be.

Funny how Garmin can produce a sealed GPS for cockpit mounting for about 200 squids and lasts forever yet Ratheon make cockpit mounting instruments which cost more, don't have hardly any functionality and in simple terms leak and corrode!

I think that in future I would invest in the Tack Tick wireless stuff which if built to the same spec as the original race compass should be reliable and excellent.

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[paulrossall]

I with U birdseye

I dont have a log and dont intend to fit one. In cockpit I have a repeater on my depth sounder and have a Garmin 12 mounted on the garmin holder wired into 12 volt. This gives me SOG, COG, course to steer, distance travelled. I also have a second Garmin 12 which is wired up to my Yeoman plotter which is (the yeoman) either just through into the saloon or is in the cockpit. This gives me backup GPS with identical units so dont have to remember how to work different systems.
My electrical requirements are simple and minimal and I dont have many things that can go wrong.
One day I will buy a radar if I get lucky.

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[quaelgeist2]

current offer...

Triggered by this discussion I have gone and resolved the situation on my boat, where flipping through the AH4000 data pages is possible, but tedious to get all info you might want.

here: http://www.allgadgets.co.uk/ag/product.asp?dept_id=7&pf_id=AG0010

you find an offer this week, that beat local Dutch prices even with a heavy P&P added.

It gives four items of data and will sit happily next to my AH4000 - together displaying 5 items then (plus log, wind, depth from St50 series)

have fun !

NB I seriously wonder about a lot of experience shared here and elsewhere: ST50 users complain about corrosion and water ingression while I have a full set in the cockpit w/o probs; NASA users complain about lack of reliability while I have had log, echo etc, w/o any problem -> installation and/or maintenance problem ???

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[Birdseye]

Viv - am puzzled by your comment. The Garmin 76 I use in the cockpit has all the functionality of (say) a Garmin 128 below decks plus the additional functionalities of being a true back up system, with an available secondary power source.

Thinking about it, it actually has greater functionality since it gives dgps via waas, but I guess that's really a date of purchase issue

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[Guest]

Done some more research. Found a solution from the american guys that make the Pathfinder radar, ST autopilots etc. (won't mention their name for fear of someone getting upset again!).

The new ST290 instrument series actually seems to have two features that might help me get the right information in the cockpit while Wilhelm is on helming duty. First of all it features a graphical LCD screen which a.o. can present any 4 data items at the same time and it is customisable so you can dump silly things like rudder angle, and stick to good things like COG, SOG, XTE etc.

And secondly, it allows you to set a rotation speed of all favorite data items. In this way you can actually check all items that you may be interested in (which may well be more than 4), but NOT all at the same time. Now I am not yet so sure if I will like this. Some items need to be there Full Time, like speed, depth, wind etc., so I would have those on a separate display. But with some Nav data and even some Wind data (true speed, true direction) I wonder if 5 seconds for every 15 seconds is maybe more than enough ?

Anyone any experience with this type of rotating data items. Or specifically with the ST290 units ? What do you think ? Would it work, or would we get so fed up with the rotation that we accept the 4 most crucial data and display that full time, in which case ST290 may just be an expensive toy compared to ST60.


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[AlanPound]

"Rotating" display....
.... we have a B&G Nav something or other which essentially only display one data item at a time, but will display SOG/COG in exactly this way.... around 2 or 3 seconds on SOG, then same on COG....

.... its, well, ok... two separate display fields would be better... but it works...

Alan

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[vyv_cox]

But my repeater can give me loads more information in addition to GPS output. Plus it can be seen by everybody at some distance, especially the person on the helm trying to achieve a constant COG. Digit height is 2-3 cm. It's fixed, is low profile and is not at all vulnerable to being knocked off, something that has happened to me previously. And to obtain any data other than position, you need to programme two units. I like to enter plenty of waypoints, something that is easy with my chart table unit. Doing it all again with a less user-friendly unit is not my idea of enjoyment.

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