VHF Radio Internal vs Ships GPS

[Fire99]

Hi, I have a new ICOM IC-M510 VHF (with AIS receiver) which is rather fine n funky and it has a built in GPS for all the usual features..
My boat has two other GPS receivers that are radar arch mounted. One goes to my Raymarine Seatalk malarkey and the other goes to a standalone RN300 Raymarine GPS.
The old VHF (20 year old Raymarine) used to pick up its GPS info via NMEA from the RN300 so I'm torn whether to have yet more redundancy and just use the internal GPS for the Icom or to hook it up to the RN300 via NMEA 0183 as per the old one. So it's new internal GPS vs old but better mounted GPS for the Raymarine..

Any thoughts on this one?

cheers,

Nick

 

[Mr Googler]

I would say the internal is fine. Everything has moved on. Even your phones tiny GPS receiver performs amazingly These days. Could we imagine that 15 years ago!

 

[harvey38]

I really depends on the structure around/above the radio but assuming it is timber or GRP, you shouldn't need an external antenna. I'd temporarily 'Fit' the radio in the desired location, power it up for a while then go into the settings to see how many satellites it has locked on to and strength, that will let you know if you need an external antenna or not.

 

[Fire99]

Thanks guys.. That makes sense.. I wasn't too keen on using a 20 year old plotter output for the gps positioning on the VHF. I'll see how the internal one goes and if it has signal issues I'll get an ICOM external one (which is one thing that ICOM don't seem to charge blood for).. I think with the laptop and android head unit, I think the boat now has about 6 independent GPS onboard..

 

[Bilgediver]

My plotter antenna works so well inside I Have never run a cable to the pushpit.