Marine Electronics
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Top of the line Garmin marine GPS devices, such as the floatable GPSMAP 78sc and the GPSMAP 78s, offer mariners a very powerful set of customizable features. With these features, which range from 3D to real-time weather data, you can make your sailing and fishing experiences much more rewarding and safer.
For those that want a safer trip, one important settable option is proximity alarms. Through Garmin’s GPSMAP alarm menu, you can tell the GPS device to alert you when you are nearing selected waypoints, buoys or dangerous waters. And you can tell the GPS device to alert you with specific visual and audio alarms. Giving you an extra margin of safety, you can also set a radius around the specific zones.
Another interesting navigational feature on these Garmin devices is the Sight N Go feature. This feature allows you to physically point the GPSMAP 78S or 78C directly at an object and lock its location. Once locked in, it’s just of matter of following the on-screen compass pointer to the location. Adding to the fun, you can also set an alarm that will sound off if you to get too far off course.
Speaking of compasses, the GPS compass on these Garmin devices can be configured for either GPS mode or electronic compass mode. The GPS compass mode, according to Garmin, is especially useful when traveling at a high rate of speed for periods of time.
Although the compass can be very useful, you will have to remember to calibrate it if you haven’t used it in a while or have traveled a great distance. To do this is not a major issue for a good sailor; simply access the compass calibration menus and follow the instructions.
The GPSMAP 78 series also includes three settings for GPS. These include normal mode, WAAS/EGNOS mode and demo mode. These system settings basically allow you to set the level of GPS accuracy. In normal mode the unit overall guarantees an accuracy of less than 33 feet, 95 percent of the time. However you can get 10 to 15 feet in differential GPS mode.
If you want to know just how accurate the present reading is, the GPS accuracy data field can be set to display the margin of error right on the screen. However, don’t forget that your GPS is always subject to accuracy degradation to 100 meters 2DRMS under the U.S. DoD imposed selective availability program.
Geocaching is another feature that the GPSMAP 78s and 78sc support. To locate treasures the GPSMAP can download the geocache’s GPS coordinates using Garmin’s communicator plug in.
The share wireless feature of Garmin’s marine GPS devices is extremely useful for sharing information such as maps, geocaches, routes and waypoints. However, for wireless communication remember that the Garmin device you are using needs to be within the required 10-foot radius.
If you’re new to GPS, the green GPS bars on the screen may confuse you. Just don’t forget that when the bars are green, the GPS signal has been acquired. Also remember that many functions such as time zone setting won’t work unless the GPS signal has been acquired.
