Does anyone have any real experience with "GPS Gyros"
and whether there is any merit to the 2-head vs 3-head
"arguments"??

Both Simrad and JRC have units which use two GPS receiver/processors
while the Furuno units uses three GPS receiver/processors

Furuno claims the additional observations gives them
better performance, especially in the presence of large
ship mostions. I know Furuno is doing carrier-phase tracking
for their RTK (Real-Time Kinemeatics) processing.

A reasonably senior Simrad factory person told me
that Simrad needed only two GPS units because they
used "better" GPS receiver/processors than Furuno.

hard to know who's blowing smoke in this picture.


Also, has anyone had an experience with the JRC JSB-196
SSB transceiver?? it's compact and has a completely
"open" TX mode. it also uses 32-bit floating-point DSPs both in
the 20.2KHz 3rd IF and in the baseband processing.

One question is what the capabilities are viz DSC *without*
going with the external NCT-196 "Class A" DSC terminal.
this companion box has the required DSC watchkeeping receiver
plus all the required GMDSS message processing.
so how does this "rack-n-stack" against the ICOM-802
with its integral DSC watchstanding receiver?


finally, any comments on JRC equipment in general would
be appreciated.

respond by email if you'd prefer

thanks
-mo