Raymarine tridata

[Captnkev25]

I friend of mine has a never used Raymarine tridata with transducers and a garmin 19hvs gps antenna that he has offered to me for $475. He will also install it for me for free. He purchased it about a year ago for a boat that he wound up selling. I have the old Signet marine units right now (depth and speed) and neither of them is working. He explained to me that with the GPS antenna I could tell my speed over ground instead of my apparent speed with the current passing over the paddlewheel as well as the boats motion. I know that the price is a good one especially since he will be installing it with me. My real question is are these good units and also is the antenna necessary since I don't have an actual gps.

 

[Bill Roosa]

tridata

That is a sweet deal!
Raymarine is great equipment. Course you kinda get stuck with only buying more raymarine stuff if you want to add things later and have it all talk together.
Not familure with the Garmin GPS but the tridata and it will not talk to each other as the tridata does not accept nema inputs only SeaTalk in and out and NMEA output. Most GPSs don't display boat speed or depth so it would not work that way either.
The "So what" is you have to have both GPS speed over ground and paddelwheel speed through the water to calculate the more interesting numbers like current set and drift.
With that said what you have there is a good deal, GPS for actual speed and position and tridata for depth, speed through the water and water temp.
If you don't want it I'd be interested in the tridata.

 

[Captnkev25]

Ok so I would need to also purchase a GPS unit separately or buy software for a laptop so the antenna can interact with that? So the garmin receiver really has nothing to do with the tridata correct?

 

[Tim R.]

A Garmin GPS can talk NEMA to Raymarine if you use a Seatalk multiplexer. Brookhouse makes one that works very nicely. So you are not locked into Raymarine for future equipment.

http://brookhouseonline.com/nmeamux_aisc.htm

 

[Captnkev25]

Thanks Tim for the info. So if I bought this whole rig and then added a multiplexer to the GPS antenna and then hooked it up to the tridata display I could also get lat/long coordinates and speed over ground on that same display? Am I correct in that or would I need to add something else? As I see it the tridata with transducers and having someone who is extremely knowledgeable in these things install it for me is worth the $475. The antenna is just a bonus for me that comes with the package.

 

[Captnkev25]

I just spoke to the guy that has all these goodies and was told that this tridata speaks NEMA. Does that seem correct?