Ideal marine electronics, show us your stuff
I’ve already described the premise below, and here are some vague notions of the three categories, plus links to some responses. Please share your ideal gear ideas via comments or email. Thanks.
Good: About a 30’ cruising sail or powerboat doing short hops along coast with the occasional overnight trips; budget/value is important. Submissions so far (3/19/07).
Better: Typically a 40’ +/- cruising powerboat capable of trips, say, up into Canada or out to the Bahamas, including occasional overnight runs; the budget is good but not over the top. Sailboats in this category would certainly include racer/cruisers used for extended coastal cruising combined with ocean racing events like the Marblehead-Halifax and Bermuda races. Submissions so far plus Dan’s sailboat (3/24/07).
Best: 50’ and better bluewater cruisers, sailboat ready for a circumnavigation including high latitude sailing, powerboat capable of ocean crossings and remote explorations; very healthy budget. Submissions so far (3/24/07), plus check out Panbo entries on Bluewater and Spirit of Zopilote.
When getting new electronics, people largely like to investigate their purchase by comparing different features, and reading reviews to find something that equals their wishes. A crucial part of this process is reading reviews by end users of the products to get a feel for them in terms of ease of use, the results they are getting, and other factors. Opinions tend to vary generally but reviews are good measurement as to how the effect is being received. You can see some excellent reviews at http://www.SupremeSpecials.com by clicking on Product Reviews. The great thing is they tend to be impartial and give you understanding into the pros and cons of the different choices.
But, Dan, isn’t SupremeSpecials just copies of Amazon pages? I agree that user reviews can be useful, but why not just go to Amazon?
Ben – How long will you keep the submissions open? I have spent a lot of time working out my equipment choices…but I also plan to be on the water this weekend [grin]
I’m going to write my articles in a week or so, but there’s no deadline on putting submissions into the web pages. Go boating, man!
Dan,
I’m curious about the Raymarine Ethernet hub in your setup. I assume that it is their Seatalk HS network switch. I would like to add one to my setup to interface with my laptop running Maptech’s CNP. Are you able to transfer waypoints/routes between your Garmin software on the Dell and the the Raymarine network?
Thanks,
Mike
Yes, “Seatalk HS networking switch” is what Raymarine calls it.
Waypoint transfer: I am a little rusty, having not done this for seven months, but I see all the details are available on the “ask raymarine” q&a portion of their website. The short answer is that transfering waypoints over the ethernet appears to be supported only by the RayTech RNS product ($700) after taking an import in .csv format from your current software. In fact, if your not going to buy RayTech RNS (which virtually transfers your PC into another e-series), I don’t think there is any way to use the ethernet connection to the e-series with a laptop. (if you were to use Raymarine RNS beware you have to delay upgrading your e-series to 4.29 until RNS 6.1 is available.)
Don’t have RayTechRNS … don’t sweat it … there are other options that don’t even need a ethernet switch:
#1 Use Raytech Planner (Free) to convert .csv files into a file you can store in a CF memory card for upload into your e-series. Raytech Planner is a limited version of RNS that can be used for planning routes and waypoints at home.
#2 Use the “PC Waypoint Utility” (free on Raymarine web site), the link to this software is in the Ask Raymarine area.
#3 Connect your PC to the e-series using NMEA0183, and utilize NMEA to perform the transfer (if your Maptech supports that). The files are small and should transfer quick, the interfaces from PC to NMEA are cheaper than the Raymarine Ethernet switch, if you use a bluetooth enabled nmea interface you won’t even need to connect a wire into your laptop at all.
Dan,
Just as I pushed the “post” button, I realized that it wasn’t going to help me as only Seatalk would be available over the network. Thanks for the refresher. I’ve been using the waypont utility for awhile.
Regards,
Mike
Your welcome.
I just came across GPSBABEL (www.gpsbabel.org), you may want to look at this. This software is for moving waypoints and such between GPS products. Both Maptech and Raymarine are shown as supported.