Congrads on your new ride!
Agree with Bob.
I’d suggest that in those areas, at a minimum you need a working VHF base radio and antenna and some ‘moving map’ nav aid. DSC has been required on ‘new’ radios since 1995, so you likely have that.
Today there are several alternatives to a standalone plotter as JonO suggests.
A common rant among experienced boaters is ‘Garmin/Raymarine/Simrad (less for Furuno) charges $4,000 for this 12” MFD in 2018 and 36 months later won’t stock parts or even tech support for it because it’s ‘legacy’ and then to add insult to injury they charge $400 for a Vision chip of the Gulf Coast. Now my $69 ducer quit and my plotter won’t work with any new depth transducer and they no longer sell any ducer that’s compatible! So, dammit, what I’m a gonna do is go out and buy me a new 2021 $4,900 Garmin MFD!
A great advance in marine electronics was the development of marine networks made of trunk lines with drop cables to multiple sensors. Raymarines Seatalk and Mercrusiers etc were all totally incompatible with others in every imaginable way (and also in many unimaginable ways).
The original 0183 network used a bundle of multicolored TINY wires where each color carried data (as in, pink for fuel level). Later, N2K replaced all that with only 5 pins and digital signals. Garmin (for example) and all others are allowed to have proprietary ‘sentences’ on the network for special unique functions they develop. Those unique sentences allow me to tap an AIS target on my Garmin MFD, which brings up an option to contact the target bridge MMSI number directly with one touch. (Originally, that option was unique to only Garmin GPSMAP MFDs networked to Garmin VHF 200 and above radios). That particular feature would not work if I had a Standard Horizon radio, although the basic MFD features and basic VHF features would still work and not cause other melodrama with other connected sensors on the N2K network.
Ideally.
But we do not live in an Ideal world, as you may have noticed.
Some types of data simply cannot be carried on the N2K network. Anything involving a picture (Radar images, CHIRP images, Sonar images, FLIR images, camera images, video etc) can not be carried on any N2K network. The simple depth number (ie ‘7.5 feet’), AIS position data, engine data like temp and boost pressure and RPMS etc will show up fine. VHF radio antennas must be connected to the radio, not the network. The radio CAN be, and a GPS antenna can be a sensor on the network. All this is ‘to my knowledge’ and ‘as I understand it’ so pipe up when I’m wrong. Eileen always does, so I’m very used to it.
All those images can’t be put on your MFD, but every manufacturer came to the rescue with their own unique proprietary ethernet like cable, thank Goodness! Of course Theirs are not compatible with Yours. Garmin’s looks exactly like a standard computer RJ-45 cable, but my Garmin instruction manual explicitly states, “Don’t even THINK about it, Highsmith!”
In general, you’ll likely be successful in getting any brand AIS and any brand GPS antenna to work with any VHF base radio. I once heard that some Italian guy got a Garmin radar to work with a Raymarine plotter.
Turns out it was the Pope.
Personally, I don’t believe it.
Full disclosure: I’ve always been a Garmin guy and I installed all the electronics, radar mount and piped the engines data onto my (Garmin) N2K network. We’ve found radar and tx/rec AIS to be helpful in our cruising. Garmin’s Auto-guidance, a one touch proposed route from the boat to the destination, is my favorite feature. The current G3 Garmin coastal US and G3 Lakes and Rivers are now only $124 each at Hodges Marine and now include auto-guidance (previously only available on premium, small-area Vision chips). They are not compatible with my MFDs according to Garmin, but they work. Most of the time.
All that is background for some new possibilities!
In the interim, another Italian guy has developed a cell-phone based, (including big Android and Ipad tablets) a truly amazing navigation app called Aqua Map (marine). For an incredible low price (I forget what, but equivalent to a few boxes of wine) he includes all the best navigation data. Like Garmin, he has to pay licensing fees to the ACE for their data, Navionics for theirs, etc etc. Unlike Garmin, the download for all the Great Lakes is $4.99 for 12 months!
We also have Navionics on the same Verizon Android tablet, and it also works well.
All that said, today we cruised down Lake Seneca for 25 miles at 25 MPH through whitecaps, and we used our two big, bright, 12” Garmin screens that we are used to. Because we are used to using them.
We’re lifetime AGLCA members, so we can read their members-only blog site. There is a wealth of information there, including marine electrical engineers and nav program experts. This is a synopsis distilled from what I gather is their consensus on ‘getting past the Big 4 Planned Obsolescence monopoly’ while saving many Boat Units on updated chips and aging plotters.
Android devices treat each AquaMap route turn as a ‘turn’, with unlimited turns per route. Apple devices treat each route deviation as a ‘waypoint’, with a limit of about 200 before running out of memory. Since a gentle curve on a route may have 7 ‘waypoints’ that can happen pretty quick on the Atlantic ICW through the marshes of Georgia.
If you choose an Android tablet, it has cell and GPS included. However, if you choose an Apple tablet, it must have both cell and GPS capability, and some do and some don’t; and the Apple store ‘geniuses’ never seem to get it right regarding your AquaMap app.
We’ve never had an apple we couldn’t eat, but I don’t have a dog in this particular fight.
For the original poster, I would suggest looking for a 5-pin plug on the rear of the plotter that might connect to an N2K network, or could in the future. Some plotters have an internal GPS antenna, some don’t. Agree as so often with Harvey to find the plotter model number.
If you have a working base VHF, antenna and moving map that doesn’t depend on having current cell coverage, you can safely delay your equipment purchase decisions until you decide on your boating style and preferences. At $200 and under, I’d suggest at least a receive-only black box AIS before the expense of radar.
As always and forever, Your Mileage May Differ!
Hope this is helpful!
Cheers and happy outfitting!
John
My question is, the Standard Horizon is an older model and I’d like to replace it with a new one, any recommendations, most of my boating will be on rivers and in and around the Great Lake regions.
with similar Lake Superior goals, and am soaking in as much knowledge as I can, bluediamond. Right now, the learning process feels like a sprint but judging by what the people in this group are saying, it's more like a never-ending marathon.