Garmin is one of the top manufacturers of global positioning systems in the United States. They offer a host of products from GPS navigational product for cars, boats and motorcycles to aviation and boats. There goal is to enrich the lives of their customers through the products of navigational equipment.
Beginning with GPS units for vehicles, Garmin began using the power of the 24 satellites circling 12,000 feet above us back in 1989 when the company started making GPS navigational systems for people and their cars. Today they are making the same product, only better. Garmin has kept up with the times and increase their products as the times called for them. Today they offer the vehicle GPS navigational unit, as well as the GPS for boats and airplanes and hikers and bicycle enthusiasts.
Garmin makes a remarkable assortment of GPS navigational units for every kind of moving vehicle and person. Today they put GPS navigation equipment in personal assistant machines which is a small travel aide; a cell phone and your computer. With the personal assistant, you can download your destination and the personal assistant will ‘walk’ you to your destination or as you are driving, give you turn-by-turn directions to get to where you are going. The cell phone is similar in that you download your information and the voice will guide you to your destination using a map of where you are now and an arrow following you as you walk to where you would like to be. And lastly we have the computer or laptop which can be used as a GPS navigational system by itself after you have downloaded the information.
Other Garmin GPS units include those for aviation use complete with longitude and altitude and the same is programmed into the marine GPS units. Some of these units are portable and can help you get around the city or town without your car and help you find restaurants, places of interest (POI) such as parks or ATM machines; they can also help you find an address you’ve never been to before. Besides aviation use, Garmin makes GPS units for marine usage as well. Being able to see the bottom of the lake or river or ocean in clear form is something fishermen have been waiting a long time for. Now they can tell a fish from a rock and discover where all the fish hang out and with the routing feature on the GPS, keep going back to the same spot over and over again.
Garmin GPS units can be found through their website or on other websites throughout the Internet. They can also be purchased at electronic stores and large discount stores for cheaper than the official website address has them. Discounted Garmin’s would be found on the Internet, be buyer beware, sometimes people are selling ‘refurbished’ or ‘reconditioned’ Garmin GPS units and if that is not what you want, you should ask if it is a new unit or ‘re – done’ unit.
By: Charlie Lee
Posts Tagged ‘Marine Gps Units’
How To Find The Best Marine GPS For Your Boat
November 21st, 2009
To find the best marine gps, you have to do a lot of comparison shopping and reading about the different brands before making an informed decision. Do some comparison shopping, read the many reviews, and shop around a little bit before making up your mind which is the best marine gps navigational receiver for your needs. A marine gps navigational unit needs to use at least 12 of the 24 satellites calculating your position. All 24 would be the best, of course. And a larger screen for reading and viewing the water below the boat would be ideal. Some of the smaller, handheld or portable marine gps units are not the best because the size takes away from the clarity of the picture. There are several that are up to 7″ with a crystal clear LCD touchscreen so you are able to distinguish a rock from a fish when looking at the water or bottom of the lake or ocean.
Another item to consider when hunting for the best marine gps would be the amount of alarms it has on it. Some have alarms for the clock, off-course, anchor drag, too shallow, too deep, proximity, low battery, arrival, waypoint, water temperature and temperature rate of change and there are others, but the best marine gps would have all the alarms for safety reasons. Along with the alarms, one must consider the nightwatch and sunlight modes many of the best marine gps units use to help with the glare from the sun off the water or to help you find your way back in the darkness of the night.
You will need to decide if you are going to purchase a small, handheld or portable model or a larger, ’stay put’ type model of marine gps unit. The portable marine gps navigational units are smaller and fit in a pocket or a purse. However some of the bigger units can be taken out and used in a vehicle such as an RV or a car, but the portable ones are made for walking, hiking, biking and moving about the city with easy. Both styles of marine gps receivers come with the same amount of software and options, it just depends on which you prefer to have outside of the boat.
Do you want to be entertained? Some of the marine gps navigational units come with an audio voice player to play books on tape, others, you have to purchase a subscription to something like XM radio or a weather channel, which is not a bad idea since the weather changes rapidly and you want to be on top of things when the weather starts to change.
Above all, make sure the best marine gps unit has enough software to accommodate all you want to do while out in the boat, such as find fish or avoid large chucks of debris. These things can be done and avoided by the type of software available to download or that has already been downloaded into the marine gps unit. Do you have to purchase more antennas? Or extra cords for your computer to be compatible? These are questions you need to ask yourself and the salesperson behind the counter or on the other end of the website.
By: Charlie Lee
