I want to buy a new GPS system. When I look at the options I seem to be able to find a lot on Garmin and not much else. Should I go for a Garmin one or can anyone suggest another brand?

Garmin is definitely not the only one, but probably the most renowned. Because of their reputation, you know that you are going to receive a certain standard of product. What are you looking for in particular and maybe we would be able to recommend something?

Depending on what you want, a lot of the car ones will work on the boat as well, but doesn’t have the extra nautical know-how.

'Magellan' is a brand worth looking at when it comes to it.

I have a Magellan hand held, and a Garmin fixed and hand held. Both excellent. With hand held you always need to carry spare batteries and keep a close eye on battery levels. With fixed installation and connected to ships main supply you don't have this problem of course. Just check out the prices; these items are now quite reasonably priced but shop around. Mail order may be cheapest.

Hi Sophie, with regards to your query on speakers; I never fitted any special type of speakers on my boats. I installed a Pioneer stereo radio with twin flush mounted speakers, and on the back where they came through the bulkhead I boxed them in with marine ply. They lived like that for years without any trouble.

think you have posted on the wrong thread Harry

I think so to Roxy. Clicked on the speaker illustration though.

sorry, my fault.

I was really looking for fixed. Is it worth getting the same brand in handheld as well so that they compliment each other, or are they all compatable?

my experience with anything electronic where there has to be some kind of interface is taht it is sensible to use the same manufacturer. And its odd but using two GPSs at the same time [same make different models] has on more than one occasion given me slightly different readings - including what I have never understood.. an altitude of between 17 and 30 ' . For a handheld I think Garmin are hard to beat. tho Magellan have a good reputation and there probably aint anything much between them given equivalent features, and price. there are many other manufacturers, but going for the tried and tested seems sensible unless you see something else you like. The basic old handheld G 12 I got about 9 years ago has taken some abuse but touch wood seems to be going strong. The G 76 is much more sophisticated, can be connected to mains via cig.lighter socket and to computer for chart plotting if you're thinking of that too [even keeps its own v.basic 'charts' in memory which you can display on its screen] . so it can be dual purpose. The fixed ones can have repeaters in the cockpit too.

Cheers for that David, you have all been really helpful

Whatever new GPS system you go for and there are many, Raymarine, Simrad, Furuno etc there would be milage in keeping your old fixed one as both a back up and a comparison. I use a fixed Furuno GPS , a Raymarine GPS / plotter and have a hand held Magellan. The theory is if the two fixed GPSs ever tell me a very different story, I can get out the hand held and find out which one is lying.

You will always get slightly different readings because they are only accurate to within about 10 metres,I presume that would apply to altitude too.

And a merry christmas to all

It does apply to altitude as well, but sometimes have a different varient Chas.

I have had a Garmin handheld for quite some years now. It gave excellent service both "on board" and in the "hills." Most Garmins that I currently see, with the exception of the very expensive models, have very small screens. However, I recently purchased the Garmin 276C which is a colour GPS Plotter. I use it in the car - excellent - and use it at sea, also excellent even though the screen is somewhat small as previously mentioned. My main gripe about the Garmin is the fact that you have to use Garmins Blue Chart cartography. No other will work with the Garmin GPS and they are quite expensive.

Hope this helps.

PS If you buy one from the internet make sure that it is a UK model and not a "EU" one as the manuals will probably be in french!

Totally agree with you Leonard – always make sure you get the UK model. So many things will come with the wrong adapter, unit measurements and even not have UK maps that are compatible if you don’t.

Hi all

I have a Garmin GPS60 and a Navman 7200 VHF. I want to interface them but I am struggling to get them to talk. Anyone any ideas

Dave

Try putting the question into a seperate forum thread - you will get more response from other members.

As previously mentioned I have a Garmin 276C I also have a Navman 7200DSC, VHF radio. I asked a friend, who knows much more about these things than I do, to get them to speak to each other. It took him about 20 minutes and now work perfectly with each other.

Good luck if you know as little as I do!

Be good if you could post the problem that was causing you the difficulty in case others have the same trouble?

Think Garmin units default to a strange output sentence that needs changing to an NMEA one to function with non Garmin equipment...

W.