Racing GPS...

[John.Richardson]

Anyone recommend a good gps for racing that's not too expensive?

How do people normally use them? I'm particularly interested re multi-lap courses.

I'm thinking highway view with all the marks in for the entire race?

Many thanks!

John

[larby]

Hmmm, I was hoping for some good answers here as I can't decide what to get for the revenger either.
Seaquest have a great Garmin unit, It's about a 5"widescreen and can be detached and used on battery power, handy in that you can plot courses on it from your sofa! It's the best one I could find, quite cheap and we've got one in Prime Suspect.

James

[John.Richardson]

Cheers James- do you know the model no or price mate?

[Foolish]

If your planning to run the whole course on "highway" check to see how many waypoints you can have per route, lots of the ones I looked at you could only input 50 points per route

[larby]

Originally Posted by John.Richardson

Cheers James- do you know the model no or price mate?

GPSmap 620. It was about £400 from seaquest if I remember rightly. For some reason, they never tell anyone about them, you'll have to actually go in and ask for one specifically. It's a great unit and the touchscreen is no problem at all.

Link to garmin bumf

Cheers, James

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by larby

GPSmap 620. It's a great unit and the touchscreen is no problem at all.

Cheers, James

We used to have an old black and white Garmin in the old race boat which Graham loved, when I raced in "Garmin" for the CTC last year the touchscreens went crazy when they got wet which made life interesting. With the Raymarine hybrid screens you can turn the touchscreen off and use the buttons :-)

[PerformanceDodge]

Originally Posted by Cookee

We used to have an old black and white Garmin in the old race boat which Graham loved, when I raced in "Garmin" for the CTC last year the touchscreens went crazy when they got wet which made life interesting. With the Raymarine hybrid screens you can turn the touchscreen off and use the buttons :-)

Oh deer…..

Just bought a touch screen Garmin 750S, I was told they were very good even in ribs where exposed. I have built a ledge over the top to shade the screen a bit and also to try to keep spray of it, do you think it will be a problem if it gets spray on it or is it when they get drenched they go crazy??

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by freddy21

Oh deer…..

Just bought a touch screen Garmin 750S, or is it when they get drenched they go crazy??

Yes - they can cope up to a point but across Lyme Bay in last years Cowes Torquay it was very wet on the way back and it didn't like getting properly wet.

[Matt]

I think it was the Garmin 128, and then latterly the 152 (which was still available last time I looked) that were popular for racing. Simple, compact, no fuss.

[larby]

The 620 has had a drenching on a few occasions now and is fine, even works well when I stab at it with wet gloves. Having used both the 152 in the old boat and now the 620, I wouldn't go back.

James

[paddy the phantom]

Hi guys,

Have a Garmin 750s ,have used it during racing and found it to be ok,it only seems to pan when hit by a lot of water or in the tail of a rooster.
The ledge is a good idea ,must try the same myself .For the cost of these units I am surprised their is no facility to adjust the sensitivity of the screens like Raymarine.Other than that they are an excellent unit.

Paddy the phantom.

[PerformanceDodge]

Originally Posted by paddy the phantom

Hi guys,

Have a Garmin 750s ,have used it during racing and found it to be ok,it only seems to pan when hit by a lot of water or in the tail of a rooster.
The ledge is a good idea ,must try the same myself .For the cost of these units I am surprised their is no facility to adjust the sensitivity of the screens like Raymarine.Other than that they are an excellent unit.

Paddy the phantom.

Not sure if my ledge idea is going to reduce the units visibility and affect its ability to pick up satellites as the antenna is built into the head unit. One reason I used glass instead of carbon as carbon conducts and acts as a Faraday Cage. If it is a problem may have to use external antenna.

Have you got the sonar connected and does it work at speed ?

[paddy the phantom]

Originally Posted by freddy21

Not sure if my ledge idea is going to reduce the units visibility and affect its ability to pick up satellites as the antenna is built into the head unit. One reason I used glass instead of carbon as carbon conducts and acts as a Faraday Cage. If it is a problem may have to use external antenna.

Have you got the sonar connected and does it work at speed ?

Hi ,
Its a good point it could block the signal alright.I have nt bought a sonar for it to be honest,but did buy a fuel flow meter,which to be honest has broken my heart trying to get the 750s to pick up,still have to ring Garmin and ask them how to get it to see the meter.
I bought the backbone and connectors and still cant get it to read it.
How do you find the unit?

[Moose]

For RB08 we used a 152 for the driver and a 550 for the nav. The 152 was so easy to program and use, whereas the 550 was very time consuming to program but was great on the water. The 152 has a built in antenna and was set into the dash, which is at least an inch thick marine ply + layers of glass and gel etc. At no point did we have any problems with the signal despite the antenna being 'in' the dash.

Cheers

Moose.

[the edge]

I've got a Garmin 126 with a Nasa clipper repeater in my Extreme - very simple to use only problem with the Garmin was the connection lead getting wet as it was exposed on the top of the dash .

[Cookee]

NASA Clipper NMEA0183 repeaters are a great way of getting information from the navigator to the driver without great cost.

[Matt]

Agreed - the hydrolift had one - very good piece of kit.