Giving Your Navigation System Some Soul

Today, the cost of navigation systems is dropping, giving more navigation capabilities for less money. This is making it much easier for more and more boaters to protect their boats from the dangers of the sea.

The newer systems can warn of impending storms, changing weather conditions and hazardous waters. And they can do it all on a full color screen with realistic and easy-to-use three-dimensional and two-dimensional maps. Furthermore these new systems can be readily expanded, allowing a skipper to add newer and more advanced navigation and communication tools as the need arises. Adding even more, these systems can be easily extended to access real-time satellite weather image data, and for those that like a little entertainment, over 120 commercial free music and news channels,

To build up a boating navigation system, one place to start is a chartplotter. A chartplotter is designed to display navigation data. Data from weather and ocean information services is fed into the chartplotter, which in turn maps the data into informative maps: maps of the ocean floor, ocean routes, storm patterns and maps showing the locations of every boat and underwater hazard around you.

To receive and display weather data and keep the music on, besides a chartplotter, you will need a Sirius weather data and radio receiver and a subscription to Sirius weather and music satellite service. These satellite radio receivers can be plugged directly into your stereo and your chartplotter, piping Sirius weather imaging data and music to your eyes and ears. Sirius weather data that can be mapped and displayed include lightening and thunderstorms, sea surface temperature, air pressure, wave heights, pressure isobars, squall lines, buoy reports and more.

Top of the line chartplotters, often have Sirius weather and data receivers built in, but middle of the line Chartplotters have Sirius compatible ports for receiving Sirius weather data and output jacks for connecting the music to your stereo system. Some of the mid-range devices are also compatible for on the road or for the water, having both road navigation and water navigation features.

Not only do the latest mid-range chartplotters offer informative real-time weather graphs, they offer it in three dimensions. They not only provide aerial view maps, but with high powered sonar transceivers can be used to examine underwater objects down to depths of 2,000 feet. They also come with auto-guidance software that connects to pre-built obstacle databases. In this way, the automatic guidance software can help you plot out the safest route, void of obstacles, dangerous waters and other problematic situations.

The new chartplotters are also designed to directly interface with marine radar systems and the latest NMEA 2000 sensor device, and they also support automatic identification systems, which are handy to track the position of nearby vessels. However, you will need an AIS receiver to add this feature.

The mid-range chartplotters are lightweight and small, weigh less than 3 pounds and can be easily fitting into a small shoebox. These portable devices have wide screens (up to 7-inch screen diagonal) and resolutions on the order of 800 x 480 pixels. At the upper end, these devices also offer a touchscreen interface.

These devices together can form the backbone of small boat navigation systems and also offer an affordable backup navigation system for larger boats, such as yachts. They all come complete with high sensitivity GPS receivers and, in general, have environmental specifications that give them the ruggedness they need to live a life on the water.

For a complete system, you can expect to pay anywhere from $700.00 to $5,000.00. However for a high quality mid-range system you can expect to pay on the order of $2,000.00. This would include $1,500.00 for the chartplotter, about $200.00 for the weather and radio receiver and about $50.00 for a very small mountable antenna. You will also have to set aside around $30.00 to $60.00 a month for weather data and music services and new map updates.