Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with
the possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard
Horizon. Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two
drawers for chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the
center console of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the plotter.

Consumer Suckers. Like the quad-zone digital climate control in your pig
SUV. Be nice to your mechanic, and don't take offense at his beaming
smile when you show up at his door with the L/F footwell at 60° and the
R/F footwell at 85°
JR
who has nothing but contempt for the consumer-driven idiocy in the
design of modern electronics

HK wrote:

Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with
the possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard
Horizon. Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two
drawers for chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the
center console of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the
plotter.



--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth

"HK" wrote in message
...

Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new
boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with the
possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard Horizon.
Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two drawers for
chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the center console
of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the
plotter.


Good luck!
I'm struggling on what model handheld GPS I should buy to replace my old,
but working perfectly, Magellan 315
I think the Garmin GPSMAP 60 CXS has a good rep...but the Garmin GPSMAP
76CXS also looks interesting.
http://ca.binnacle.com/index.php?cPath=12_286

On Jun 23, 9:38?am, HK wrote:
Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with
the possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard
Horizon. Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two
drawers for chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the
center console of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the plotter.

With the basic guts of the electronics almost identically configured
from one unit to the next and workmanship pretty well standardized at
a
decent level thoughout the industry, the only thing the mfgrs have to
"sell" is the number of features available on brand X over brand Y.

Additional features (once designed) cost almost nothing to add to a
basic device. As a result, everything from TV remotes, cell phones,
marine electronics, etc, is now overly complex.

Forty years ago we all owned TV sets or radios that had two- three
basic controls and three basic functions. We could switch them off and
on. We could turn the volume up and down. We could switch to a
different station. It now takes four dozen buttons on a high tech
remote control to, essentially, turn the darn thing on, turn it off,
adjust the volume, or change the program shown on the screen. What the
heck sort of "progress" is that? :-)

Don White wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
...
Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new
boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with the
possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard Horizon.
Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two drawers for
chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the center console
of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the
plotter.


Good luck!
I'm struggling on what model handheld GPS I should buy to replace my old,
but working perfectly, Magellan 315
I think the Garmin GPSMAP 60 CXS has a good rep...but the Garmin GPSMAP
76CXS also looks interesting.
http://ca.binnacle.com/index.php?cPath=12_286




I wish these makers would concentrate on the important features. I have
a nice cellphone, but it has a camera built-in, a camera I used once, I
think, on my trip to Hawaii, and just as a gag. More volume on the
earpiece part would have been more valuable.

Don White wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
...
Bit frustrating trying to find the "right" GPS Chartplotter for a new
boat.

We've been looking for a larger screen plotter, 6 or 7" diagonal, with the
possibility of adding on a sonar/fishfinder, between $600 and $1000.

Almost everything we have looked at has too many damned features. We're
pretty sure we don't want to hook up a video camera or DVD player to it!

Anyway, I kind of like the combo units from Lowrance and Standard Horizon.
Lowrance has a unit with a built in 30-gig hard drive and two drawers for
chips. I wonder about the efficacy of a hard drive on the center console
of a small boat out there in the ocean.

I don't much like the new Garmin units.

In case we go for separates, any recommendations for a color screen
fishfinder? It doesn't have to have a screen nearly as large as the
plotter.


Good luck!
I'm struggling on what model handheld GPS I should buy to replace my old,
but working perfectly, Magellan 315
I think the Garmin GPSMAP 60 CXS has a good rep...but the Garmin GPSMAP
76CXS also looks interesting.
http://ca.binnacle.com/index.php?cPath=12_286



The Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx is a great unit from a company that stands
behind their products. I've never heard of, or seen, the 60CXS. At
least you are actually shopping. Your buddy Harry seems to be suffering
from his narcissism again.

Dan

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:00:57 GMT, Dan wrote:

The Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx is a great unit from a company that stands
behind their products.

Oh yeah?

Try and deal with direct after going through two of their units in one
month.

Go ahead - then tell me about the wonderful "customer service".

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:00:57 GMT, Dan wrote:

The Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx is a great unit from a company that stands
behind their products.

Oh yeah?

Try and deal with direct after going through two of their units in one
month.

Go ahead - then tell me about the wonderful "customer service".


I owned some Garmin stock a couple years ago, and I was always a firm
believer in Garmin GPS products. I looked over a few units recently at
the neighborhood West Marine, and I was not pleased by the complexity,
the number of features that would be useless to me AND the high prices
for relatively small units. We're still looking at Lowrance and
Standard Horizon, both "horizontal" units with the right features and
reasonable prices.

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:00:57 GMT, Dan wrote:

The Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx is a great unit from a company that stands
behind their products.

Oh yeah?

Try and deal with direct after going through two of their units in one
month.

Go ahead - then tell me about the wonderful "customer service".

They returned my out of warranty GPS12 and my out of warranty
StreetPilot C330 in less than a week at no charge. The GPS12 was
several years ago and the C330 was a few months ago.

I emailed their tech support and they replied with an RMA number. Very
simple and professional.

Dan

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:30:15 GMT, Dan wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:00:57 GMT, Dan wrote:

The Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx is a great unit from a company that stands
behind their products.

Oh yeah?

Try and deal with direct after going through two of their units in one
month.

Go ahead - then tell me about the wonderful "customer service".

They returned my out of warranty GPS12 and my out of warranty
StreetPilot C330 in less than a week at no charge. The GPS12 was
several years ago and the C330 was a few months ago.

I emailed their tech support and they replied with an RMA number. Very
simple and professional.

Well, good for you.

In my experience, it was entirely the opposite.

So much so that I'll never buy a Garmin.