Bruce in Bangkok wrote:

I have a - no idea of the name of the thing, probably Chinese anyway
- Bluetooth GPS receiver. Came with a mini-disk with drivers which
installed a "Bluetooth serial port" and IIRC allowed one to change the
port number as required. Connected it up, configured the port and the
two chart plotter applications I have worked with no problems. As far
as I know the chart-plotter software all simply accesses one or
another of the serial ports to receive a data stream and doesn't care
what generates that data.

The problem I had was that the GPS had to be located above deck and
the battery in the Bluetooth GPS would run down in a few hours so I
adapted it to run on 12 VDC. But that was the only problem.

Thanks, Bruce. My handheld (and other handhelds I've seen)
also only work in the cockpit, which is why I thought bluetooth
might be preferable -- maybe leave the receiver in the cockpit
and the netbook at a nav station as near as possible to the
companionway. The ebay gps I linked to claims (repeat, claims)
to run 15 hours off a charge. Anyway, for the time being
I took Wayne's usb-wired gps recommendation, and will play with
that for a while.
Which two chart-plotter applications have you worked with?
My small amount of googling suggested
http://www.fugawi.com/web/products/f..._navigator.htm
might be best, but it sure ain't cheap. I'd rather play with
something way less expensive, at least until I know what I'm doing.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: where j=john and f=forkosh )