Hand Held GPS

Can anyone offer advice on the best hand-held GPS to use as a back-up to my fixed chartplotter?

I was considering a Garmin 12 and aquapac - or has anyone tried the new Garmin 76?

Thanks.

The Garmin 12 is good -- it's cheap, easy to use and waterproof. I don't use an aquapac with mine and I've had no problems. If I had to buy another hand held GPS it would be another Garmin 12.

The 76 is the marine version of the Etrex range. It looks cool and groovy, but doesn't appear to have many new features. From a quick look at www.garmin.com (http://www.garmin.com) the main differences seem to be:

- larger display
- built in world base map
- more routes (but not more waypoints)
- 2xAA batteries, not 4
- 16 hour battery life vs 24 hour (claimed!)

I don't have prices to hand, but I have seen the Garmin 12 for about £100. I would expectthe newer Garmin 76 to cost substantially more than this, which I would find hard to justify.

John

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John Kennett
RIBnet (http://www.rib.net/)

Thanks John,

The current prices are ~£115 for the 12 and £200 for the 76.

What made me consider the 76 was that it is waterproof (floats!) and larger display.

When making a comparison I was adding £15 for an aquapac to the 12 (which it sounds like I would'nt need). Do you think an unprotected 12 would survive one of those days when it feels like you are getting a bucket of salt water thrown in your face every 10 seconds?

Thanks again

The 12 and the 76 are both waterproof to the same standard -- protected against water immersion at a depth of 1 metre for 30 minutes. If your RIB is that wet, your GPS is likely to be the least of your worries!

Although Garmin make a big deal of the size of the screen in the 76, there's just about nothing in it:

Garmin 12 - 3.8cm x 5.6cm
Garmin 76 - 4.1cm x 5.6cm

So the Garmin 12 doesn't float, but for the difference in price you could almost buy an extra one in case you drop it in the water!

John

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John Kennett
RIBnet (http://www.rib.net/)

Thanks John - I will go for the Garmin 12.

Good choice .....I have one as a backup, used it frequently, and it has never let me down!

Ditto !!!!!

Stuart www.powerboat.org (http://www.powerboat.org)

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www.powerboat.org (http://www.powerboat.org)

I have used Garmin 12 XL in a helicopter and with my boat. I have only good things to tell about it.

If you think about the hand held GPS and how you can use it to get the best out of it take it as a supporting navigational aid or as a stand-by equippment.
Because of the small display the numeric information is the most useful when used with the map.
The moving-map display is also very useful but when you use it it's very easy to forget to follow the map and in the worst situation you don't have any idea where you are if the GPS fails.

All together: Garmin 12 is very good product to be used for the navigation or as a stand-by equippment. I would suggest that never use the GPS as a primary navigation system.
(I don't mean that you don't know how to use the GPS but at least in the civil recreational aviation the GPS seems to cause very often problems).. and it's not too much different to navigate the aircraft than the RIB

It is very good support for the traditional map-navigation.

J Hjerppe

[This message has been edited by Jari Hjerppe (edited 30 May 2001).]

Its not a handheld, but I was looking at the new MLR 112 GPS in the local chandlery today. Its a fixed mount unit with built in antennae BUT rather than fiddle around with plugs etc the whole unit mounts onto a bayonet type fitting with concealed contacts about 4cm x 1cm. Seemed like a pretty neat idea - simple to lift off and take ashore with you. Only question mark would be is the latching mechanism strong enough to cope with the pounding on a RIB?! Could see the whole thing unlatching itself at sea and jumping overboard!!

Big display though and a full numeric keypad which is a real bonus when entering those waypoints! £250 odd. Tempted to get one to replace our U/S Eagle View.

Alan

I am currently using the GPS III. It has all the features you can possibly dream of + the road map of Europe (if you buy ot in Europe), or USA (if you buy it there) + a very reliable world map that serves me with good info while sailing the Agean (Greece). I think that Garmin has released a new model with pc support (updating) the enclosed map.

Currently using a hand held Garmin 12xl. In order to down load routes and way point info from a PC to the unit, do I need 'MapSource', and if so which one, or are there other software programmes (off the web?). MapSource seems expensive just for data exchange!

Chris

Have a look at Peter Bennett's GPS pages at http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/ for links to various options.

John

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John Kennett
RIBnet (http://www.rib.net/)

You might also want to check Joe Mehaffey and Jack Yeazel's web site at: http://joe.mehaffey.com/ .
The site itself is a bit messy, but the amount of information is enormous.
If you only want to down/upload routes, waypoints and tracks and do not need mapping functions there is a number of freeware solutions such as Waypoint+ (http://www.tapr.org/~kh2z/Waypoint/) (can even plot information) and G7ToWin (http://members.home.net/crh24/gps/g7towin/g7towin.htm).


Sasa

[This message has been edited by sasa (edited 09 June 2001).]

Many thanks. Have downloaded a programme called EasyGPS - seems to meet my needs.

www.gpsw.co.uk (http://www.gpsw.co.uk) are doing the Garmin 12 for £89.99 and the 76 for £174.99.

Cheapest I have seen them !!!