Hand held GPS

I am curious has anyone one used a hand held GPS like you would a chart plotter,or GPS in a fishfinder? I'm sure it would not be accurate. But if it puts you within 15 feet or so and you were not running close to the shore. Could you follow your track close enough?

Re: Hand held GPS

Yep.

Did it for 2 years. Set waypoints to find my mooring at night, the gap in the causeway to get out of the bay to the broad lake, and a couple around the bay that I could navigate to at night, knowing that once I hit that point, I could line up with a pair of radio towers to get me into the inner bay without getting too near the shoreline.

Re: Hand held GPS

Garmin 205 nuivue works on my Lake and it shows old roads that came down to lake plus good trolling speed indicator , Need to ad cig lighter/assy plug for charging now .

Re: Hand held GPS

Does the garmin also provide GPS speed?

Re: Hand held GPS

yep i use my little etrex all the time, does average speed distance travelled and can follow a bread crumb track back to start

i would say it places me with in 10 or 12 feet.

Re: Hand held GPS

I used a hand held for years and if you get one with WAAS it will be accurate to within a few feet, even the old models were very accurate.

I got fogged in on my river one night and used my Magellen to get me back to the launch and that would have been 8 or more years ago and they have gotten much better since then.

Re: Hand held GPS

I've been very happy with my Garmin 76CSx. It's designed for marine applications. Has marine charts. Works great. Even has a "Man Overboard" feature. I really enjoy tracking my course and then plotting that course on the satellite picture with Google maps.

Re: Hand held GPS

I have a Garmin Nuvi 265 and I use it on the road, on the water and in the air (not for navigation). It's pretty good even against the GPS system in the airplane (use it to geotag aerial photos regularly). Garmin does have water nav maps available for this unit, but I haven't purchased on yet as I stay pretty much in waters I know right now.

Re: Hand held GPS

If you have an iPhone or ipad, Navionics has a good app and good GPS. I think the iphone app was $10 and the ipad app was $50. It is best if you have a 12V power source with a USB inverter. That way the screen does not go to sleep with idle time

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I have a speedo on my Droid works great. I just got a cell phone holder that sticks/suctions to the side windshield and then I plug it into my 12v.

Re: Hand held GPS

I have a Garmin Oregon 450 that I've had great results with using it on my boat. The display is nice and bright even in direct sunlight. Some useful features that is has include tide charts/graphs, good size touch screen, set and upload/download waypoints, track recording. Additionally, it is very customizable. You can choose what (and how many) data fields are displayed on the map, compass, and trip data pages. It also has the ability to save multiple profiles - every setting can be changed for each profile.

Another useful feature that I've used is following previously created routes. From GeoGarage you can overlay NOAA charts on google maps, plot a route, and then export that to the GPS.

Re: Hand held GPS

Scorpion210 said:

If you have an iPhone or ipad, Navionics has a good app and good GPS. I think the iphone app was $10 and the ipad app was $50. It is best if you have a 12V power source with a USB inverter. That way the screen does not go to sleep with idle time

Click to expand...

Also supports Android. I have it. Have yet to test it.

Re: Hand held GPS

I have used a Magellan Explorist 400. Its easy to work with in that I can input lists of lat/long into the phone as waypoints, create tracks of fishing spots I want to hit, etc. It has displays for speed, heading, trip odometer. One great feature is that it allows you to create your own Raster maps, so I can take images off of Google maps or topo maps, orient them with some lat/long points, and then import them into the handheld unit. Lucky for me Army COE has a free collection of topo maps for my local lake, so I got the maps for free.
More recently I have started to use GaiaGPS for Android. A little less functional than the handheld unit, but it does give heading and speed information, as well as allowing you to create tracks. Did I mention this was free?

Rgds

Re: Hand held GPS

Until recently I used a Magellan Explorist 500. You can load detailed maps into it. It is primarily designed for ground use so it shows terrain features. Water (on mine) is just plain blue. If you load the detailed maps you can get pretty accurate shorelines. You can mark points and follow tracks on the water very well. If you receive WAAS you can get a position to about 10 feet. Because of the color screen you really should connect it to external power if using it for longer periods. I had mine mounted in a holder on the console. You can save the tracks and then look at them in Google Earth when you get home.

That all said, I recently got a Lowrance H2O C on Craigslist for $150. It came with the Navionics memory chip for coastal US (including Great Lakes). With the chip activated you get detailed nav charts and the thing works as a chart plotter. The land terrain features are not displayed when the marine memory is being used. You can remove the chip and use it on land using the internal database. The H2O C has more features, operates faster, and is more customizable than the Explorist. While still a hand held it is also larger than the Explorist and has a larger higher resolution display. It should be plugged in if you are using it a lot.

You can download a simulator of this unit for use on a PC from the Lowrance website.

This unit is discontinued, but you can probably find them on Craigslist or eBay.

Re: Hand held GPS

Have a Garmin HCX handheld and used it on the boat for the last couple of years. I loaded in the maps of the chain of lakes where we keep the boat. With over 60,000 acres with lots of bays and inlets, I'm nervous without it. With it I can read speed accurately, know exactly where I am at all times and can get back to the dock on the darkest night.

Re: Hand held GPS

That is what I was looking for thank you for your replies.

Re: Hand held GPS

Scorpion210 said:

If you have an iPhone or ipad, Navionics has a good app and good GPS. I think the iphone app was $10 and the ipad app was $50. It is best if you have a 12V power source with a USB inverter. That way the screen does not go to sleep with idle time

Click to expand...

sje0123 said:

Also supports Android. I have it. Have yet to test it.

Click to expand...

UPDATE: I had a chance to play around with this.

Cost me $14.21 on my Android phone. Worth every penny. Very accurate location (this will be diff from phone to phone). Shows everything out there you would ever want to see. It also has point marked by locals. Things like submerged stumps, wrecks, places to avoid, etc. Tracks route, records waypoints, lists all marinas, fuel, etc. If you see a marina you want to call you tap on it and it calls them. Lists their VHF frequencies and everything. I highly reccommend it to everyone.

Re: Hand held GPS

The only hitch I've seen to using a smart phone app is that the moment you lose coverage ... you lose GPS. In some areas it's over absolutely no concern, but in other areas a satellite will hit where a cell tower won't.

Re: Hand held GPS

True. As far as tracking goes thats an issue. The maps are stored on the phone so even if lost you still can navigate. I don't travel far enough to lose reception. We have pretty good coverage around here.

Re: Hand held GPS

I've only run into it once (with a buddy's smart phone - I'm still stuck in the dark ages), but I know of several dead spots around here.