Garmin 162
Jim - I don't have a 162 on my boat, but I've sold a bunch of them and used them aboard a client's boat. It works really well, but there are a couple of qualifiers. Since you have a 48, you are already familiar with the ease of use Garmin builds into their products. The 162 is similarly intuitive, and you will learn to use it very quickly. Its a great value with lots of features for its price. I would get the external antenna version, however. I don't know what boat you sail, or whether you have doger or bimini hardware to contend with, but more than one person I have run into has discovered that the pedestal or especially the companionway did not turn out to be an ideal antenna location. I'm sure there are lots of people out there for whom there has been no issue, but I wouldn't want to be one of the others. Ok - the qualifications. Its a pain to up-load the disc. You've either got to take the machine home and use the up load kit ($80 or so) or take your laptop to the boat and connect a serial connector to the data cable that comes with the unit, then plug that into the computer. Annoying but not terminal because the 80 for the kit is less than the jump to a unit that take chips. Bigger qualification - the information the unit can display is limited. This may or may not matter to you, but around here its an issue. You will not see depth soundings on the chart on the unit. Casco Bay has ugly shallows, so unless you know the area really well you need to keep an eye on the chart at all times. I see the chart plotter as a way to ease that necessity, but since the mapsource CD doesn't down load depths, it wouldn't serve its purpose for me. I don't know your sailing area, or how well you know it, so I don't know how much of an issue that is for you. Installation is straight forward. Screw it down, run the power cord and you're golden (run the antenna cable if you're me). Justin - O'day Owners' Web
