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Which snowbird navigational system? - wait for Weather radar and AIS capability?
"Ted" wrote... wrote in message I'd like to hear some recommendations for either a cockpit chart plotter, or a combo using my laptop below and some sort of handheld above. Keeping in mind our cruising areas, and our limited fixed income: If a chart plotter/GPS, which one? Or does a GPS attachment to the laptop, some navigation software, and some sort of handheld seems to make more sense? If so, what equipment, what software? For you snowbirds with sailboats out there, what is your set up? If you are not in a hurry, I would recommend waiting and watching the current developments of two valuable technologies for pleasure boaters, superimposing weather info and displaying the locations of other boats on your GPS map. AIS and DSC are the new technologies for receiving position reports of other boats in your vicinity on two VHF marine channels 87 & 88 (162.025 and 161.975 mHz) . XM satellite radio is one company that is currently broadcasting weather info that some GPS receivers are able to receive and display. Here is one example of two Garmin units that receive and display XM satellite weather data: http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap376c/ http://www.garmin.com/products/sp2730/ www.tvnav.com has the Garmin 376c for $805 Here is more info on signing up for XM satellite weather. http://www.xmradio.com/weather/av_subscription_pkg.pdf The Garmin 376c doesn't have AIS vessel traffic reporting and display yet but if you just can't wait you could try to get a third party AIS receiver decoder that will put the waypoints into the Garmin 376c. One such third party AIS receiver is he http://www.nasamarine.com/AIS/AISENGINE.html Here are some web pages that further describe AIS and DSC http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/marcomms/gmdss/dsc.htm http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/enav/ais/default.htm http://www.sailmag.com/05feellison.qrk.pdf http://www.amcom.nl/marine/icom_ic_m421.htm If you want to use the sound card to decode and display AIS data on your laptop see this web page: http://www.coaa.co.uk/shipplotter.htm Here are a few more interesting links: http://www.xmradio.com/weather/ http://www.nasamarine.com/press/pdfs/sx35.PDF http://www.nasamarine.com/press/pdfs/sx35pract.PDF http://www.nasamarine.com/press/press.html |
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