Do you use electronic navigation?

[Dakota Jim Russell]

Roger wire up your Garmin 48 to the 12 volts

Roger: we got the dc connector for the Garmin 48 and wired it into the boat wiring. We actually taped into the Autopilot 12 volt wiring and tied into its electronics.But by having the 12 volt direct wired, we don't burn out AA batteries any more. By wiring it into the autopilot 4000 we are able to use the gps for guidance rather than the autopilot compass. This has a few advantages, but the big gain is not having to buy batteries for the Garmin 48.If you need specifics on the cable to buy or how to connect, I'd be glad to help.Jim

 

[bill walton]

For what it's worth

For our P42 I built an industrial type PC with dual cooling fans and a 12V power supply so I could bypass the inverter. It's 3.5"tall, 18.5"wide and 19"deep whic is not much bigger than my laptop and docking station but is much more robust. The enclosure is also shielded. I found a 15" LCD monitor that is 12V. Together they cost less than a good laptop and draw about 5A dc. They're both good to 55deg C and 90% noncondensing rel. hum.. The PC servs multiple purposes, navigation and entertainment. For Navigation, I've got a Raytheon DGPS, bought before the gov.. turned off the scrambling, feeding position data to the PC and the AP via seatalk. I have a handheld magellan nav6000 as a backup. I run Chartview Pro software which communicates CTS and other data to the AP. In the cockpit, I've got a raytheon 520 CP with cmap cartridge so I have a view of the surroundings from up there as well as WP info to steer to if the AP fails. For entertainment, I have about 300hrs, of MP3 music(from my own CDs) stored on a HD. It is interfaced to 12V amplifiers that provide any music I need. It has a DVD player and a TV tuner card for video entertainment on the monitor which is mounted so it can face the nav station or the salon. My goal has been to get a 12V system which is more efficient than converting from the inverter to 110v for a PC, TV, stereo, VCR or DVD player and to get fewer components. I also kept my old hand-me-down laptop as a backup as well as charts, compass, eyeballs etc.. We've used it up and down the Keys, ocean side and bay side, from Dry Tortugas to FtLauderdale. We'll be heading to the Bahamas in the Spring and Cuba next Winter.

 

[Andy Howard]

Don't leave home without it

This past spring we moved up to a new (old) Hunter 34 equipped with Auto pilot, refrigeration, roller furling, and AC. The new systems were a little daunting at first but we quickly wondered how we ever lived without them. I added a pedestal mounted GPS/Chartplotter/Depthfinder in June and it quickly became another piece of eccential gear. We like to anchor out in the quiet (and shallow) little creeks of the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers, and the chart plotter has given us the ability to attempt areas we had never dreamed of trying to get into.We still use paper charts in the cockpit and for at home planning, but I almost wonder how I did it without the chartplotter.

 

[SailboatOwners.com Editorial]

Final results

Final results for the Quick Quiz ending 11/12/2000:Do you use electronic navigation?  60% GPS only 15% All I can connect 15% No 10% Plotter/laptop