Garmin Integration Suite
Gents,
I'm getting some additional marine electronics installed next week and have some questions I would appreciate some insight into. I spoke to Garmin Support this morning and they were less than helpful, with the lady who took my call having very limited understanding of their equipment capabilities ... hence my post :)
As background, I am currently running a Garmin Suite, including the Garmin 2Kh Radar; Garmin 4210 sounder/GPS unit and GSD-22 sounder module & Airmar Transducer. In addition to this, next week I am having installed (a) a second Garmin Unit (5008 Touchscreen) that will run the chartmodule whilst the existing Garmin 4210 will run the sounder module (b) GSD-24 sounder module; (c) R199 2Kw transducer. All is Garmin equipment and my plans are for it to be fully integrated.
With that background in mind, I have the following quesitons:
(1) Whilst all the installation is happenning, I'm thining it also makes sense to get them to also instal the Garmin GHP 10 Autopilot System. I'm thinking of staying with Garmin for full integration. Any thoughts on this?
(2) I do alot of fishing down south when there is almost no map coverage (deep off Gracetown area). As such I wish to integrate the two Garmin units together (Garmin 4210 & 5008) so the sounder unit updates the map unit with the ground I am driving over. I know that commercial units have this capability but not sure about these units?? When I spoke to Garmin they very nervously said yes I should be able to do it, but i need NMEA. From my research I can't find anything to support this. Any thoughts?
(3) I want to download my Garmin SIM card to my computer to backup my GPS spots and interpret data. Garmin are telling me I need to purchase "HomePort" software from them. Is this the best way to go about it, or are there any better methods?
(4) I heard there is a way that I can scroll back on my sounder history and it will bring up the GPS co-ordinates of the sounder readings. Is this true as I haven't been using this functionality so far if it is?
Cheers
John
till
Posts: 9358
Date Joined: 21/02/08
1) Their AP looks ok
1) Their AP looks ok actually.
2) No, you can't write to your map card. You need a system like dr depth, or maxsea for that.
3) Sim card? It isn't a phone ;) People use GPS babel to convert between formats, but usually you write points to a spare card, not the map card.
4) if the gps is connected to the sounder, yes.
JohnF
Posts: 2839
Date Joined: 07/07/10
Hi John 1) Their AP is meant
Hi John
1) Their AP is meant to be excellent.
2) Agree with till, very much doubt you can do this with the Garmin units. NMEA connection is no worries, but I dont think the Garmin stuff has the capability.
3) I have got both Garmin Homeport and Garmin Mapsource. Give me a call and I will let you know how to get if for free........You can then easily download all your waypoints, tracks etc to the SD card and then onto your laptop. There are a few little tricks......I converted all my Raymarine GPS points to the Garmin but needed to go through two conveters, but can be done.
4) Scroll back is dead easy, I do it all the time on my 740, just hit freeze screen button then scroll back and p;lace the cursur on the lump and hit mark, the GPS point will be logged into the chartplotter. Not sure how far back you can go, I just use it to go back to stuff on the screen so I dont have to turn back.
Boston Whaler 235 Conquest......getting the flogging it was built for.
paula8519
Posts: 101
Date Joined: 09/03/10
garmin
Hi i run the 4012 with a gsd 26 chirp module an excellent set up. SADLY the gear wont allow for sea floor updating and recording on yours or my set up. Dr depth software will do this but as they have been recently taken over and new sales are suspended with support only to existing clients. Another programme is Sonar TRX but they are not linked to the garmin platform, to my recolection they only run with humminbird. The navico line of Lowrance and Simrad have structuremap which does this within thier platform and excellent it is, sadly not convertable to garmin. Furuno have the best of the lot in thier Max Sea programme, this software uploads from gps and sounder modules at the rate of one depth recording per second. The record is stored in your software information database but this does not come cheap. Your will need a laptop the maxsea fisherman software $2500 , with a w.a. chart plus nmea 2000 or ethernet connection cables , this is what the pros use. As for the nonesense from garmin australia they would not have a clue about thier own product. PUT SIMPLY GARMIN HAVE NOT WRITTEN SOFTWARE FOR THIS DESIRABLE FUNCTION. Your cheapest alternative would be to buy a lowrance unit with structurescan capabilities and follow this route.
paul a
snuffs
Posts: 140
Date Joined: 06/08/12
thanks all, great comments
thanks all, great comments and really useful. much appreciated! cheers, john