what GPS do you use?

[jplacson]

Garmin Rino!!!! For the price, it rocks! Using 2 units, you can send each other your locations within 2 miles.

I paid under $180 for my Rino 110, those that want to load maps can get the 8MB Rino 120.

 

[namtlar]

I've been looking up info about a GPS as well, and I found a post about using the GPS under water. The basic concept is that the GPS should retain its display even when it loses its signal.

The author of the post said the Garmin replaces its display screen with a "Signal Lost" message, while the Magellan doesn't. So the claim is that if you get a clear under water housing for it, attach it to a line, and ensure that it's bouyant. When you release the GPS it will surface and regain a signal. Then you can pull it back down and get your exact positioning.

As for the question of currents affecting the divers actual location, he says, "This has never been a problem because the housing ascends very, very rapidly. Even in the most sever current(including change of tide) I have not had a problem. I can often see the housing directly above me. Remember that this concept is being used in depths of only about 70fsw or less. *most often 50 fsw or less. At 50 ft....the housing hits the surface in about 3 seconds!"

I make no claims concerning any of this, but simply put this out for comments, since it seems that most on this thread (up to now,) prefer the Garmin.

Aside from the under water use of the Magellan, I thought the display being overwritten by a signal lost message was a little bothersome. Even on land, if I lost the signal, it would be nice to still be able to reference the last known location on the display.

Thoughts, comments?

Cheers,
Robin

 

[Don Burke]

namtlar once bubbled... I've been looking up info about a GPS as well, and I found a post about using the GPS under water. The basic concept is that the GPS should retain its display even when it loses its signal.

The author of the post said the Garmin replaces its display screen with a "Signal Lost" message, while the Magellan doesn't. So the claim is that if you get a clear under water housing for it, attach it to a line, and ensure that it's bouyant. When you release the GPS it will surface and regain a signal. Then you can pull it back down and get your exact positioning.

As for the question of currents affecting the divers actual location, he says, "This has never been a problem because the housing ascends very, very rapidly. Even in the most sever current(including change of tide) I have not had a problem. I can often see the housing directly above me. Remember that this concept is being used in depths of only about 70fsw or less. *most often 50 fsw or less. At 50 ft....the housing hits the surface in about 3 seconds!"

I make no claims concerning any of this, but simply put this out for comments, since it seems that most on this thread (up to now,) prefer the Garmin.

Aside from the under water use of the Magellan, I thought the display being overwritten by a signal lost message was a little bothersome. Even on land, if I lost the signal, it would be nice to still be able to reference the last known location on the display.

Thoughts, comments?

Cheers,
Robin

I saw that underwater box and consider it a pretty tedious way of solving a fairly simple problem.

If you let go of that housing and it ascends at about 100 feet per minute, what is it doing to your trim? Won't you sink like a rock?

If underwater position is that important, put the receiver in a float and send the NMEA data down a fiber optic link to a display you can hold onto all the time. The examples I saw for the system would have required a dive flag anyway.

My Garmin 12XL (until it finally gave up) would let me go to the plot screen and put the cursor on the last recorded position, so there is a way of getting the last position out of it.

For what it's worth, I consider the current status of the receiver to be far more important than a known invalid position. That position could get me killed.

 

[namtlar]

Don Burke once bubbled...
...If underwater position is that important, put the receiver in a float and send the NMEA data down a fiber optic link to a display you can hold onto all the time....

That was in the discussion too. Using a link link that would be susceptible to drift.

My Garmin 12XL (until it finally gave up) would let me go to the plot screen and put the cursor on the last recorded position, so there is a way of getting the last position out of it.

For what it's worth, I consider the current status of the receiver to be far more important than a known invalid position. That position could get me killed....

That's cool to know about the 12XL. I was more concerned about losing the display. I'd only thought about using a GPS to get me to a dive site, but thought the concept about using it under water was cool.

Robin

 

[100days-a-year]

I have a Furuno GPS 35 differential.It is very accurate and the display is superior in size to any other machine with less than an 8" display.I would get a Garmin if buying now instead of 7 years ago.Garmin has far better memory as far as # of waypoints & routes.The handhelds are almost unreadable on a moving boat.I used etrex and GPS 76map as back-ups only.I use Andren waypoint management software and OZI explorer to download.This allows me to use multiple brand downloads and uploads to the GPS.Also allows me to use multiple user-generated offsets for GPS-LORAN conversion.

 

[Don Burke]

namtlar once bubbled... quote:
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Don Burke once bubbled...
...If underwater position is that important, put the receiver in a float and send the NMEA data down a fiber optic link to a display you can hold onto all the time....
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That was in the discussion too. Using a link link that would be susceptible to drift.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Garmin 12XL (until it finally gave up) would let me go to the plot screen and put the cursor on the last recorded position, so there is a way of getting the last position out of it.

For what it's worth, I consider the current status of the receiver to be far more important than a known invalid position. That position could get me killed....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


That's cool to know about the 12XL. I was more concerned about losing the display. I'd only thought about using a GPS to get me to a dive site, but thought the concept about using it under water was cool.

Robin

The angle on the line to the floating GPS would be pretty much the same in either case and it would be real time with the link. Outside of some complexity, I don't see the linked rig being inferior to the linkless rig in any way.

 

[Tom Winters]

This thing was great when I drove charter dive boats in Hawaii. For my own use now, I just got the el cheapo Garmin E-trex from Amazon - Target has had it as low as $80. Not much in the way of features but it will do for now.:sharky:

 

[MaxAlegraD]

If you can want to keep it simples just use the Garmin e-trex (the yellow one). At www.gpsdiscount.com you can get for $87 + shipping. It will give you the basics if you only need you position and other information.

If you want to go for a mapping solution than I would recommend the Garmin GPSMAP76S or GPSMAP60C new model. They both offer WAAS and mapping capabilities and large memory. But it also requires some learning to fully use these units. Cost is also higher.

 

[jrg]

I bought a magellan map 330 a few years ago for the boat, but I get more use out of it in the car. It wasn't advertised as a WAAS gps, but you can download new core software from magellan's website that makes it WAAS enabled -- for free! It came with the mapsend streets CD that adds the little roads & other details to the map. It even shows the little dirt roads at some of the places we camp.