MapTech GPS

[Sea Six]

I was talking to a guy today who had a GPS antenna hooked up to a serial port on his laptop and used MapTech software ro display GPS chartplotting on his PC screen. He said he was having intermittant problems with the antenna and wanted to replace it with a new GPS receiver antenna from Garmin or RayMarine. He is not sure what to do because the connectors on the cable ends are not the DB9 type that plug into a serial port, so he is not sure what to do. Anyone ever heard of this before? I never did, and was wondering if anyone had ever done this. If he is correct, it makes me wonder why buy a $2000 GPS unit when a laptop computer can do the same thing?? If you have done this, how did you connect the antenna wire to your serial port?

 

[Sea Six]

Re: MapTech GPS

Checking the MapTech site, I see they sell a GPS receiver that plugs into your USB port for $150. No need to adapt the other vendor products. So if you have a laptop and MapTech, you can have a nice GPS display for $150.

 

[ziggy]

Re: MapTech GPS

yep,,i like this idea too. the gps interface with the laptop. think ya just need the gps mfg. proper software and proper cableing. thinking it's gps specific, not computer specific. not sure of that as i don't have the capability as i have an old gps. newer gps's are more friendly to interface i think. one reason for spendin the $2k for a hip chartplotter gps might be that perhaps the laptop will be cumbersome to use on the high seas. wires from here to there, a place to set the laptop and gps at. or the fact that yer gps and laptop will most likely be batt. powered. when the batt. is dead, so's yer fix. another thought, i wonder how well a laptop likes the salty sea air or maybe a wave splash overboard right onto yer laptop? i don't think my laptop is water resistant at all. i would guess a $2K gps chartplotter is water resistant and hardwired to the boats electical sys.

 

[s1jor]

Re: MapTech GPS

I've been using maptech software and Memory-map software and a laptop as a chart plotter for a while. Originally I interfaced a Garmin GPS through the serial port, but as you say you can get a cheap usb gps now or if you have bluetooth on your laptop you can get a bluetooth gps and don't even need wires. The memory map software allows you to have your maptech charts and see your position on a PDA in the cockpit as well. You hit the nail on the head with the main problems. securing the laptop, damp salty water and power. I use a centrino laptop with long battery life and a 12 volt car cigarette lighter charger lead. You can use very simple techniques for securing it like valcro on the chart table and the bottom of the laptop. You can of course go for a 12 volt PC built into the boat with a small screen, but then your back towards the $2k dollars. The advantage of the PC is you can plan journeys at home on the PC and your route etc is there when you get there. The perfomance for moving around maps is much faster on a modern PC than the chart plotters.

 

[Sea Six]

Re: MapTech GPS

You can get a 175 watt inverter that plugs into a 12V (cig lighter) outlet in your boat that will power the laptop. You only need that when your battery is low. There are no wires other than the external antenna. The guy I was talking to had an enclosed helm, so water wasn't an issue. He also had a remote display somewhere else on his boat that was waterproof. The PC just seems to offer so much more flexibility, and the MapTech screens look good with all the usual details. You can get the detailed maps with aerial photos for $250, plus a 3D bottom view for another $150.

 

[Sea Six]

Re: MapTech GPS

One other thing I learned is that I don't even have to buy the USB antenna. I can use my little old handheld Magellan (which doesn't even have mapping capability) as the antenna, then take the standard NMEA183 output from the handheld into the PC using the serial port cable I already have. Think I might invest in the MapTech software and play around with this.

 

[s1jor]

Re: MapTech GPS

That's what I did with the Garmin, just used it as the GPS and connect it to the serial, or actually my laptop didn't have a serial so I connected it via a USB Serial converter. You can get a car cigarette lighter charger for a lot of laptops then you don't need to use an inverter to convert to AC and then back to DC and it'll use less battery, but I guess that doesn't bother you if your running it in a powerboat. I was using it in a sailboat where I needed to keep an eye on the boats battery life.