posted 07-22-2004 12:06 PM ET (US)            

By the way, it was EXTREMELY EASY mounting the unit, as RatherWhalering did it for me!!! (Thanks Rob).

For reference, the 172C can be turned into a 178C with the addition of the GSD-20 "black box" mounted in the console, giving sounding capabilities to the 172C. This might be an option if you can't find the 178C in stock at a fair price.

Transducer mounting is critical on whalers -- my Furuno FCV-600L doesn't operate correctly "at speed" due to improper mounting of the transducer. I'm hesitant to change it as I don't want the extra holes in my boat.

If I was mounting a transducer on my boat now, I would install a decent size piece of Starboard in the area, and then mount the transducer to the starboard -- this way if you need to move / adjust / change transducers, you aren't making new holes in your boat -- just in the starboard.

posted 10-27-2004 11:42 PM ET (US)            

GSS your post confused me. The 178C is a fixed mount GPS/SONAR and the 176C is a portable GPS Chartplotter.

The 176C has been replaced by the 276C which has a much better screen. It uses the same chip as the 176C.

posted 10-30-2004 01:57 AM ET (US)            

We also have the 178C, with internal antenna, and transom-mount dual-frequency transducer. Note that you can buy it with a single-frequency transducer or no transducer if you already have a compatible one for your boat.

Being a computer geek, I got the 128MB memory card, BlueChart CD with one unlock code (Lake Erie), a second unlock code (Tampa to New Orleans), the AC/serial port adapter, AND the USB memory card programmer (much faster than the serial port, for loading the maps. Serial's fine for loading waypoints and tracks.

Recently also bought another swivel mount, DC power/data cable, and dual-frequency transducer so we can use it in the sailboat.

We like the way it performs. The memory card was overkill, since if I recall correctly, both unlock codes only used up 18MB. But we can backtrack MANY days and miles with that much memory :) and the 128 wasn't much more expensive than the 64. If you're going to use something other than BlueCharts, like the lakes CDs, you can get two 32MB cards for the price of the 128 and swap 'em out.

posted 10-30-2004 11:53 AM ET (US)            

The use for a 128 card becomes clear when you use a GPS on land as well as water. I recently took a trip from Georgia to Wisconson. The 128 held a map of the entire possible part of the US I might be in (and I don't like freeways). Not only a Metroguide map, but also a Topo map. Last year I did a similar trip up into Canada. I love being able to drive the little roads in a unfamiliar state.

You may have been unaware that you can load multiple entire sets of maps in the Garmin card, and then select which displays.

My big problem in investing in a boat only GPS is the near total neglect of inland waters. That Topo map shows dry land on the area of the 40 mile long lake we go to when we just are dinking around. And that lake has been full for more than 30 years! I do have my GPS along, running Metroguide, which at least shows roads and the lake outline accurately.

Yes, if I go to saltwater, or the great lakes I can get charts, and that's nice. For the limited times I can afford to make the trip. But my primary boating is freshwater. To justify getting a new GPS just for the boat, it will have to include the sounder. That will be used as long as it's accurate in shallow depths. Like 2' or less. And while I don't really need the GPS on my local lake, there are dozens of other large and small lakes to boat in Georgia, as well as hundreds of miles of rivers, and my favourite, swamps. Quite a few folks keep pestering Garmin to put out charts. Their fishing hot spots CD is a joke, by trying to cover the whole country they left nearly everything out.

BTW, my current GPS is a StreetPilot 3. Now dropping off the back end of map support. For the boat I'm looking at the the Garmin color display sounder/GPS. They have only recently started to combine the ability to use the land maps with the water ones, something I really want.

posted 10-30-2004 02:50 PM ET (US)            

I heard the original Fishing Hot Spots CD wasn't much better, but I know now that they have dedicated Recreational Lakes Regions, MUCH more is included. The "East" region even has the little 2,800 acre reservoir I mentioned above, with contour lines. AND it adds MUCH more local road information. I plan on getting that.

The big difference between the newer marine/highway combo units and the all marine, are that you can get auto-routing and voice prompting only on the former, and transducers only on the latter. I don't really have room for a separate sounder on either boat, so the GPS/sounder combo is a must for me. Otherwise I would've considered the new 276C despite its smaller screen.

posted 10-31-2004 01:07 AM ET (US)            

I was actually talking about the detailed maps, not the onboard baseline map, which I never use. I'm quite sure that I'll use the detailed charts for marine saltwater too. Once I have a GPS that takes them, the StreetPilot can't.

Garmin's topo has had several updates, all of which have really only been the software. The map itself has not been updated since I first started using it quite a few years ago. The land road maps have been updated fairly regularily and are now pretty good for roads, poor for lots else. They are driven by the folks who actually use these things for routing instead of just a moving map. I've done that, even tried out the voice interface. I'd go postal using either for very long. I have found setting a route, ignoring the instructions and just using the highlighted route on the map display for navigation is slick. I once did that all the way from Georgia to Seattle and back. All back roads, near zero on freeways. That was a very enjoyable trip. 8000 miles worth. I did not stick to the route I'd drawn entirely, but did so lots of the way. Roads where all I'd meet were locals.

I do scientific work (field biology) that requires that I be able to record the lat/lon info on my records as well as other info so the site can be found again. So, I've been using GPS for quite a while. As well as laptop mapping for even longer. I use a mix of paper maps and GPS. GPS is great for detail, but when you want to look at the big picture that small screen can't do it at all well. Then it's back to paper.

I checked at boater's world just a week or so back on the new recreational CD. It did not add much to the lake count for Georgia. Of the 8 or so large lakes I'd most likely boat, only one is included. And there are more large lakes than that. And, of course no small lakes or rivers. Boater's world as a Garmin dealer has told them numerous times how hard it is to sell a unit when there are no maps. I tell them every time I have dealings with them. I usually write Garmin with each new update and grill them on what they did to update maps, or add map coverage. Remind them that a bug fix in the software is not a map update. There are a huge number of boaters that work freshwater, they just don't seem to get it.

The 276C is probably what I'll replace my StreetPilot with. It's also a matter of what fits on the dash of my Ranger. The big display setups don't, particularily on rough back country roads doing field work. For my Montauk I've been eyeing the 188C. Same reason as yours, combined sounder and GPS saves space. Any one I get I want to take the plug in memory. I've several memory modules and the system all set up, and built in memory just is not enough the way I use these things. I've been kind of holding off waiting to see what new popped up. It's only recently that they got units that could handle both land and marine mapping. I don't see their marine mapping arriving any time soon, so I'm going to continue to do a lot of boating with the land maps.

I take both my Montauk and my 22' pontoon boat into thin water often. On the pontoon there are two hummingbirds. The graphing one really can get silly in shallow water, it's a low level unit from several years ago. We depend on the dash unit that gives only a digital readout. And sometimes get down to someone checking off the bow with a boathook. The dash unit will maintain accurate reading under a foot (in tenths of a foot), plenty good enough as by then the bottom of the honda would be buried if not tilted way up.

The Montauk came with a Raytheon L265. Once I got the transducer set up properly that's been fairly reliable. You do have to manually bring it's sensitivity way down for shallow water. And it does break up some under 2'. Once I get the 9.9 aux running so I can really run in shallow stuff (it barely sticks below the keel) I'll get a better idea. Right now the Montauk can't do quite as shallow as the pontoon. The Raytheon is what I need to replace. I'm also still considering putting one of the hummingbird dash units in too. I just toss the StreetPilot on the console on a beanbag mount and I put in a cable to power it. No way you can run it off internal batteries for very long.

Walt