In article ,
says...
On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 01:01:15 +0000 (UTC), JohnF
wrote:

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.

I used the Blue Tooth GPS to get a remote GPS. The original idea was
to have an independent portable chart plotter system that could be
used in the cockpit for navigating in close quarters - up a river for
example, and to work (hopefully) if the main system failed (which is
linked to a Garmin fixed mount GPS), so the thought was to get a
remote GPS to link to my Eee computer and the Blue Tooth gizmo was the
first I came across that looked like it would work.

On my recent trip, I used my IPad with the Navionics chart pack
for British Columbia for this purpose. To get the GPS on the
IPad, you need to get the 3G-enabled version. That adds $130
to the basic cost. However, the full BC chart pack was just $29.
That's several hundred dollars less than the Canadian electronic charts
from other vendors. The IPad got good GPS signal inside the
wheelhouse of the Nordic Tug 37 we had chartered.

My feeling is that 15 hours of life is expecting a LOT. But maybe?

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.

I've got Cmap-ECS and MapSea. Both are fairly old versions, the CMAP,
probably 10 years old. My experience is that all of the chart plotter
applications can be used and which ever one fits the type of sailing
that you do is best. I find that I use almost none of the fancy
features that the newer versions have, as about the only "feature" I
use is the electronic range and bearing that CMAP has.

I tried the Garmin charts with the NRoute application in BC. It wasn't
nearly as good as the IPad app.


Mark Borgerson