Advice on Electronics Please

[Charles]

......even better, try one of those magnetic scrabble game thingies!

[Mike C]

Dear Mr. Priddy, we don't all have lids on our boats to put TV''s!... or scrabble boards in!
Graeme, my only comment, the thoughts between the 126 & 128 GPS. As you know from our Cherbourg trip, I have a 128 with a posh aerial on the back. The 126 has an integral one. I have plugged a self-contained, 2" long aerial into the back on my 128 - inside the console - and it works perfectly. Ergo I SUSPECT that the 126 will probably do just as well as laying in meters of cable to an aerial on the A Frame. let me know if it works if you do it. I thought you were buying MY boat!.... maybe!

On Chartploters with electronic maps. You will wish you had one if there is a strong Southerly wind blowing and you are crossing from Corsica to Italy and the waypoints you have chosen, take you SOUTH of Elba. Then you will wish you could put in a new waypoint to take you NORTH of Elba... but its too windy to get the chart out! I did!

Mike C

[Allen]

Originally posted by John Kennett
You'll just have to make do with a GameBoy then won't you?

John

Alan P and a Game Boy ?!

I'd heard that rumour .......

[John Kennett]

Allen:

Your reply means I have just won a £5 bet with myself . . .

Everyone else:

Back on topic, don't bother to put your GPS antenna on the A-frame. There's no need, and it will only get knocked off! Unlike a VHF ntenna, there is nothing to be gained by mounting it high up -- it just needs a clear view of the sky. On top of the console is normally good.

Quite a few of them will also flush mount (rather than pole mount) if you remove the lower half of the casing, which makes console mounting even easier.

How about that? Useful information and double entendres to keep Allen happy!

John

[Alan]

your GPS antennae on the A Frame is what to do with the 20ft of cable that otherwise will end up bundled up in the console!

If I were replacing our Lowrance 310 GPS I would go for one with an integral antennae - Garmin 128 or the MLR FX312 (I think its called) which has an integral antennae and nice baynet mounting system for easy removal and stowage. Its also the one of the few GPS's with full numeric keypad. So much easier for waypoint entry!

A plotter with as big a screen as you can afford/fit is a good thing on a RIB. You can (I do) live without one and in some ways it disciplines you to do "proper" passage planning on paper charts prior to setting out. (Although inevitably not all the time!) The ultimate in plotters IMHO is the Raymarine colour job. (as fitted to Spirit of Cardiff I notice). Brian's got one on Cyanide and it is the dogs danglies. Except when it went on the fritz in the middle of a thunderstorm off Duncansby Head. But thats another story!

Alan

[Alan Priddy]

Hairdresser, all this talk of "correct mounting" You have an expertise in this if I recall? Perhaps you could let the others in on the secret of using your rubber bits to perfection?

[Allen]

Originally posted by Alan Priddy
using your rubber bits to perfection?

Wrong again, I can see your a slow learner - up here rubber bits are used for protection

John, that's another fiver you owe yourself. I could do constructive, but as a hairdresser (of all things) I feel obliged to respond to Alan P in kind