Can anyone point me to some good sources for reviews of marine electronics,
specifically GPS plotters, fish/depth finders, and radar? I will be
equipping a 28' sportsfishing boat and want to gather some info in this area
before listening to the dealer's pitches. Thanks

--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

The West Marine catalog has info on the features and what to look for. The
manufacturers web sites list the specifications.
After an hour or so of review, you should have an idea of how much money
you're willing to spend and what you want.
Within each price range, they're all pretty much the same.
Like cars, a lot of people favor the first brand they had experience with.
Garmin was always more user friendly, but I think many will tell you that
Magellan's have caught up.

"Peter Aitken" wrote in message
m...
Can anyone point me to some good sources for reviews of marine
electronics, specifically GPS plotters, fish/depth finders, and radar? I
will be equipping a 28' sportsfishing boat and want to gather some info in
this area before listening to the dealer's pitches. Thanks

--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

"Peter Aitken" wrote in
m:

Can anyone point me to some good sources for reviews of marine
electronics, specifically GPS plotters, fish/depth finders, and radar?
I will be equipping a 28' sportsfishing boat and want to gather some
info in this area before listening to the dealer's pitches. Thanks


Just pick up any boat magazine. They all have "good" reviews on everything
for a boat, especially their advertisers' products....everything is just
wonderful in a boat magazine.....

Now, if you're looking for an HONEST review, I don't think Consumer's
Report ever does marine electronics....

Nobody is going to tell you the Raymarine 2KW radars suck because the dome
gets all wet inside and the damned thing is made of cheap pot metal and
corrodes like hell when Raymarine is buying six full-page color ads,
including the inside back cover. For that information, you need to read
rec.boats.cruising and rec.boats.electronics and hear it from the screwed
customers....(c;

Boat magazine reviews suck even worse than the worst product they give
glowing reports about! Everything in there is just a sales brochure to
move the advertisers' crap!

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Peter Aitken" wrote in
m:

Can anyone point me to some good sources for reviews of marine
electronics, specifically GPS plotters, fish/depth finders, and radar?
I will be equipping a 28' sportsfishing boat and want to gather some
info in this area before listening to the dealer's pitches. Thanks


Just pick up any boat magazine. They all have "good" reviews on
everything
for a boat, especially their advertisers' products....everything is just
wonderful in a boat magazine.....

Now, if you're looking for an HONEST review, I don't think Consumer's
Report ever does marine electronics....

Nobody is going to tell you the Raymarine 2KW radars suck because the dome
gets all wet inside and the damned thing is made of cheap pot metal and
corrodes like hell when Raymarine is buying six full-page color ads,
including the inside back cover. For that information, you need to read
rec.boats.cruising and rec.boats.electronics and hear it from the screwed
customers....(c;

Boat magazine reviews suck even worse than the worst product they give
glowing reports about! Everything in there is just a sales brochure to
move the advertisers' crap!


I've noticed that magazine reviews never have anything bad to say. They may
pick a nit or two in an attempt to seem objective, but I just don't trust
them. Also a product may work fine when new but be subject to problems down
the road like the one you describe.


--
Peter Aitken

"Peter Aitken" wrote in
om:

I've noticed that magazine reviews never have anything bad to say.
They may pick a nit or two in an attempt to seem objective, but I just
don't trust them. Also a product may work fine when new but be subject
to problems down the road like the one you describe.


The only way it will ever be objective is if there is some non-marine-
business-connected organization that works for its readers, not its
advertisers.....just like Consumer's Union does for its subscribers with
its own testing labs and experts and NO ADS. Otherwise, you end up with
the mutual admiration society that is marine magazines....

Brunswick makes amazingly wonderful boats because they buy wonderfully
profitable advertising in every publication. Then you run into some little
bump of a blog like David Pascoe's Fiberglass questions:
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Fiberglass_Boats.htm
Funny, I never saw any pictures like this on the Sea Ray ads or in Sea
Ray's magazine I can't stop them from sending me.

What boating needs is some really serious WEBLOGS to bypass the
manufacturer/dealer influence and expose the nonsense in the business.

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Peter Aitken" wrote in
om:

I've noticed that magazine reviews never have anything bad to say.
They may pick a nit or two in an attempt to seem objective, but I just
don't trust them. Also a product may work fine when new but be subject
to problems down the road like the one you describe.


The only way it will ever be objective is if there is some non-marine-
business-connected organization that works for its readers, not its
advertisers.....just like Consumer's Union does for its subscribers with
its own testing labs and experts and NO ADS. Otherwise, you end up with
the mutual admiration society that is marine magazines....

Brunswick makes amazingly wonderful boats because they buy wonderfully
profitable advertising in every publication. Then you run into some
little
bump of a blog like David Pascoe's Fiberglass questions:
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Fiberglass_Boats.htm
Funny, I never saw any pictures like this on the Sea Ray ads or in Sea
Ray's magazine I can't stop them from sending me.

What boating needs is some really serious WEBLOGS to bypass the
manufacturer/dealer influence and expose the nonsense in the business.



I agree that the influence of the advertising $ keeps the major mags from
being really objective. Blogs and newsgroups are good but they suffer from
the problem of the irate owner who screwed something up from his own
incompetence, blames the manufacturer, and then goes on a crusade. Sigh.
There is no single good way to get information about boats, electronics,
etc. Life just isn;t that simple.


--
Peter Aitken

On Sun, 08 May 2005 22:39:55 GMT, "Peter Aitken"
wrote:

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Peter Aitken" wrote in
om:

I've noticed that magazine reviews never have anything bad to say.
They may pick a nit or two in an attempt to seem objective, but I just
don't trust them. Also a product may work fine when new but be subject
to problems down the road like the one you describe.


The only way it will ever be objective is if there is some non-marine-
business-connected organization that works for its readers, not its
advertisers.....just like Consumer's Union does for its subscribers with
its own testing labs and experts and NO ADS. Otherwise, you end up with
the mutual admiration society that is marine magazines....

Brunswick makes amazingly wonderful boats because they buy wonderfully
profitable advertising in every publication. Then you run into some
little
bump of a blog like David Pascoe's Fiberglass questions:
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Fiberglass_Boats.htm
Funny, I never saw any pictures like this on the Sea Ray ads or in Sea
Ray's magazine I can't stop them from sending me.

What boating needs is some really serious WEBLOGS to bypass the
manufacturer/dealer influence and expose the nonsense in the business.



I agree that the influence of the advertising $ keeps the major mags from
being really objective. Blogs and newsgroups are good but they suffer from
the problem of the irate owner who screwed something up from his own
incompetence, blames the manufacturer, and then goes on a crusade. Sigh.
There is no single good way to get information about boats, electronics,
etc. Life just isn;t that simple.
Practical Sailor should be mentioned here. It is solely subscriber
supported, with no ads (like Consumer Reports in that respect). It
isn't large enough to have specialist experts in everythiing, but it
describes what it has tried, and explains what it likes and doesn't
like and why.



Rodney Myrvaagnes J 36 Gjo/a


Kansas--working to become a science-free zone

You need to decide what you want first. Do you want combination units?
Or do you want dedicated single function units, and do you have the
room for them? With your combination units you get more in less space.
But when you have a failure, and you have to return the unit, you loose
all those functions the unit performs. With dedicated, single function,
units you do get better performance, but they take up a lot more space
and they cost more. But if your fish finder fails that's the only
function you have to do without until it comes back. Your best fish
finders and radar's come from Furuno, for GPS equipment it's Northstar
and for radios it's ICOM (their top of the line units). Furuno makes
some very nice combination units, they've been building these units as
individual components for some time now, so their probably a safe bet
when it comes to a combination unit. Northstar has been building
LORAN's and GPS's for a long time, and their great units, but their new
to radar and fish finders. ICOM, I'd stick to their radios only for
now.

Just my two cents.
John

"Capt John" wrote in message
ups.com...
You need to decide what you want first. Do you want combination units?
Or do you want dedicated single function units, and do you have the
room for them? With your combination units you get more in less space.
But when you have a failure, and you have to return the unit, you loose
all those functions the unit performs. With dedicated, single function,
units you do get better performance, but they take up a lot more space
and they cost more. But if your fish finder fails that's the only
function you have to do without until it comes back. Your best fish
finders and radar's come from Furuno, for GPS equipment it's Northstar
and for radios it's ICOM (their top of the line units). Furuno makes
some very nice combination units, they've been building these units as
individual components for some time now, so their probably a safe bet
when it comes to a combination unit. Northstar has been building
LORAN's and GPS's for a long time, and their great units, but their new
to radar and fish finders. ICOM, I'd stick to their radios only for
now.

Just my two cents.
John


Thanks for the input. I sort of have my eyes on the NavNet 1823C which is a
combo unit. I think I'd prefer one large screen to 2 or 3 smaller ones.

--
Peter Aitken

Practical Sailor is the Consumer's Union like review source that I know
of, and they usually come up with pretty reasonable testing methods and
critieria for evaluating products. However, being a small publication,
it's hard for them to keep up with all the products on the market. And
while they have a website (http://www.practical-sailor.com), they
charge for review articles to offset the fact that they aren't
advertising supported.

I'd certainly like to see more reviews of boat products on the web, and
I would hope that we start seeing a lot more boat and gear blogs, but
surprizingly few are active yet. And I'd also like to have more product
review type features on my blog, www.navagear.com, though producing a
good review is remarkably time consuming, not to mention costly, if the
manufacturers aren't giving you freebies.


Aaron Tinling
s/v Sweet Destiny
www.navagear.com - the tools and tech blog for sailors