GPS Marine Use

[Seamist]

I have recently purchased an iPAQ 5450. I am looking to add on a GPS receiver primarily for marine and car use. The most attractive unit at the moment with Blue tooth technology appears to be the Emtac unit (allowing me to move betwen car and boat easily). Could anybody help with the following:



1. Does the unit come with software which will dispay basic GPS info for navigation e.g. LAT, LONG, Dist to Waypoint, bearing etc. If not can anybody recommend a software package at a good price.

2. I need to find an output from my iPAQ to feed GPS information to my VHF radio for distress calls. Can this be done ?.

[DavidW]

I would think that for marine use, you are probably better off with a marine GPS and a cable link to your VHF setup.



I wouldn't want to rely on the Pocket PC in a possible safety of life scenario; if it happens to have crashed or somehow you've exited a necessary piece of software, your distress system may not work when it is needed. Similarly, whilst Bluetooth is good, a radio link is inherently less reliable than a cable.



Another problem is that I don't believe any of the Bluetooth GPSes are waterproof (unless placed in a waterproof box), nor are any Pocket PCs (and if you're going to put a Pocket PC in a waterproof box, you will have to be careful to waterproof the entry of any cable - Otter have products that should help in this; their latest Armor product has a waterproof cable entry option).



I'm no expert with the Garmin range, but they do have some products in their marine range that would suit.





You could use the same setup in car with the right leads - I know it wouldn't be as compact as some, though it shouldn't be bad. If you fit a re-radiating antenna, there'd be no need to have the GPS receiver mounted on dash - you could fit a mount for it at much lower level. Make sure the cables you choose power both the GPS and Pocket PC from external power - otherwise you might get flat batteries during a trip!







David

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