Gps Chartplotter

[indy]

Gday guy's

Have decided to bight the bullet and get myself out of the stone ages and get a chartplotter but the thing is i dont really no jack about them so whats the pick of them at the moment brand wise as well as what sort of card do i want, i have heard navionics is good do i need a silver, gold, platnium i dont no all a bit techniqual.

Ok my fishing is all offshore so i want something that will help me out with contour lines as well as showing reefs ect. I plan on fishing up north a bit further now going to fish 1770, stanage bay ect so with that plan would like to be able to see the various islands on the chart that i may encounter ect.

I only want to spend about $1000 to maybe a bit more if one brand outways another for a little more money.

At the moment i have a gp32 furuno which i love but would like to be able to see where i am at with all my marks that are in proxcimity of each other.

Thanks guy's
cheers pete...

[johndeere]

Tip. Make sure you get one that has different coloured tracks so that it is easy to delete the old ones. My Navman 8184 has 10 tracks but they are all black so you don't know which is which. Zoom in close to check how small the pixels are on the track as the Navman gets jagged tracks which makes it diffiult to retrace where you have just been.

[tunaticer]

I like the Garmin range of stand alone chart plotters and they do a good map that covers from Mackay to the Victorian border nearly. I have 4 garmins currently and none have offered me a problem in 6 yrs.
I have killed two Lowrances during that period though.
Have not had anything to do with Navman/Northstar.

I read recently that Navionics are releasing a new set of charts in Sept 2010 that include the moreton bay green zones. Have not heard when bluecharts will include them for the garmins though.

Do yourself a big favour and look for a 5" or larger screen, anything smaller and you will be forever on the zoom button.

Best not to get a combo as you lose half your screen size to sounder and half to gps, plus if it breaks down you have lost both.

[dreemon]

Agree with tunaticer, the smallest screen you'll want is 5 inch, I bought a garmin 451 combo with 4 inch and it is a bit to small but such a good deal with g2 vision for $ 650 I couldn't pass it up, ( long story )

Still not to bad cause the chart split with sonar on is 2/3 screen chart above the 1/3 sonar under,

I think the g2 vision works better with the combo unit,

If I were more dedicated and had the money I'd go the separate units,
this combo suits my needs,

have you found one you like yet? Cheers

[Vitamin Sea]

Indy

You are not the only one in the stone age mate, still have the Garmin 128 in the boat

Cheers

[Lucky_Phill]

Nothing wrong with the 128...... I recently still had the 120 ..... in fact, I think it's still in the shed.


I run two stand alone units.

Garmin 172C and a Garmin 276C. ( don't ask why 2.... )

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo simple to use and combine it with Mapsource on ya PC.

I found the newer Garmins... 400's etc....... harder to use, in other words, have gone " user-unfriendly. Toooooo many menus. They ended up like the Furunos, Lowrances etc.

If you can find the 172C that is....... Should be some in the states, but get the mapping over here. $130 for mackay to twofold bay nsw. MPC414S

PM me for where to get card at that price.

You will get unit, card and mapsource for under your budget.


IMO.


LP,
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[One Day]

Indy,

Steer clear of the navman / northstar units. I have had nothing but issues with mine (has been back 3 times) ranging from not acquiring satellites to just recently the backlight failing. I found out this was due to some water which had entered the unit. When I inquired "Aren't these units supposed to be water proof?" I got the reply "yep supposed to be". The backlight failing is a common problem with these units apparently.

You might also want to inquire if the unit you choose has technical support outside of the warranty period, i.e can they be repaired outside of the warranty period if they break down? You might be surprised. All the best.

One Day

[Heath]

Indy

You are not the only one in the stone age mate, still have the Garmin 128 in the boat

Cheers

Me too !!!!
The bloody thing keeps going and going

[Midnight]

Gday,
I have a Lowrance Global Map 7200C with Navionics XL Gold card, and couldn't be happier with it for the money. It is very user firendly and the screen resoulution and update rate is excellent.

I got the unit from Florida for less than half the price of one here and it was delivered in 6 days.

I had a problem when I did the install, I rang tech support in the U.S from my mobile on the boat at around 11pm West Coast U.S time and got put straight through to "Lance" in tech support. He solved my problem over the phone and I had the unit running within 5 minutes of dialling their number.

All around I could recommend the unit and also buying one from the States. Value for money and the tech support is excellent.

Cheers,
Myles

[borryking]

I have a Garmin GPSMAP 3006C which I am very happy with. The new model is the 3206C. It is hooked up to my FCV620 sounder via NMEA and chats quite happily. It is a bit snooby when talking to the DF90 Suzuki though.... If you want to interface it with a sounder or engine pay special attention to the NMEA format (mine is 0183 but the engine is 2000).

[dreemon]

The Garmin 551s combo just went on sale at whitworths for $ 899 from $ 1229, a few others on sale there too. Cheers

[indy]

Thanks everyone for your input so far will go to the tinny and tackle show and have a play with a few different ones and see what i like leaning towards garmin or raymarine at present.

cheers pete...

[Greg P]

Pete - look for something with NMEA2000 so you can hook the zuke up for fuel flow. Ive had a pre navico 7200C Lowrance and it has been faultess since I got it. 2.5 years 450 hrs

[indy]

G'day guy's

I ended up getting the A50 raymarine from the boat show for $1120 payed another $330 for the Gold card covering the whole of australia and also get the handheld vhf thrown in.

I can probably still up grade to the platnium card as i dont get the system until late next week but do you guy's think that it is worth the extra money?

Also i will be selling the vhf hand held which is also raymarine for $200 they are valued at $350 if any body is intrested let me no but wont be available until the end of next week.

cheers pete...

[Snapp]

Good choice Indy, same as mine and v-happy so far.
I was just looking at navionics site & thread on this site about updated marine parks card, as i don't have card yet.
Would be good to hear some fedback on your unit with card in it.