Marine Electronics
Follow: 
Their small size and mounting options let you put them just about anywhere. You can mount them on the windshield of your boat, car, backpack, belt, or even attach them high atop your boat’s mast. For a more solid wireless-free connection, USB and NMEA GPS sensors can readily be adapted for a variety of vehicle specific plug and play applications.
For marine applications GPS sensors have other advantages. And that’s because the design focus of a GPS sensor is around the GPS receiver, not the display, the software, or the user interface. A GPS has none of those things. It just has one port that is used to send the GPS data it collects.
If you examine the specifications of a typical GPS sensor, you will find that it has a much better receiver and environmental specifications than your handheld. You can readily find receiver sensitivity as low as –185 dbW.
You don’t have to look around too long to find a GPS sensor that is environmentally tough. Typical operating and storage temperature ranges are well below freezing and near the boiling point of water. A typical GPS sensor will not only be waterproof, but can have an operating temperature range from –30 to +80 degrees Centigrade and a storage temperature range from –40 to +90 degrees Centigrade,
One drawback and plus of GPS sensor is that you need another device to view and process the GPS data. This could be a simple PDA, a two-way radio device or a laptop or netbook. Often GPS vendors offer GPS sensors that can be connected to their other GPS mapping and display devices.
The plus that a laptop provides is that it they can be configured as an excellent GPS processing station. And that’s because your laptop has a lot more processing power, memory and connectivity power than a GPS handheld ever will.
Another advantage of GPS sensors is that you can readily move and mount them in different locations. When you’re done boating, snap off your boat’s GPS device and click it into place on your car. After your drive home, pluck it off your car mount and connect it to your PC’s USB port. Or go wild and connect it to your weather station. What better way to get a science project done?
One approach to set up a GPS sensor system is to first take stock of the hardware you already have. A wireless GPS sensor can be used with PDAs such as the BlackBerry, smart phones like the iPhone, and even old computers. Then download the navigation software to all of your devices. Each device than can be used as a GPS navigation system with different features for different applications.
