This old Garmin 72 GPS was advertised on
the VHF net 22a in Zihuatanejo (at 9:00 am except during Sail Fest then 8:30 am)
so we purchased it from Dave on s\v Falcon for 200 pesos (about $15.00 USD). We
want to take way points at the bow when we drop the anchor. It runs on simple
AA batteries and is water proof and floats. The date on it we have not been
able to update. It supposed to get it’s info by satellite. We have tried the soft key combinations
but to no avail. Not having the correct date will prevent us from using the celestial
data. Not a big deal to us.
At present if we want to set an anchor alarm
we either set the way point at the helm when I tell Debbie the anchor is down
or we take the 10” Samsung galaxy tablet up to the bow (requires two hands)
and set the way point in the Drag Queen anchoring alarm app. This can be
problematic as my hands are wet with sea life and slippery. Just having the Samsung galaxy tablet at the bow makes it possible to lose it overboard. So with this little Garmin GPS we set the way point with one hand and then enter it later into the Garmin GPSMAP 740 chartplotter and the DragQueen app on the 10” Samsung galaxy tablet at our convenience.
Also sometimes we look for an anchoring
spot in a bay when we are in the dinghy. If we want to move we can search out a
spot. Well now we can set a way point for the spot we like using the hand held
Garmin 72 and then enter it into the Garmin GPSMAP 740 chart plotter and go for
it later.
Now for a portable depth sounder we can use
in the dinghy!
DragQueen Anchor Alarm
Note:
2018
Garmin has purchased ActiveCaptain and they no longer support ""DragQueen" anchor drag app.😠It can still be downloaded and installed here for Android any way. DragQueen.
No cables but this does work on batteries.
Satellite info
Waypoint.
The Garmin GPS 72 does have an anchor alarm
but it seems that it is local to the spot you have the GPS. So if you are sitting
in the cockpit with it or in the stateroom
then that is where the anchor is. This is not good for swinging on the
rode. It can work but I think the distance would need to be set for the rode x
2? We have not played with the anchor alarm on the Garmin 72 GPS much so we are
not really sure. We only want to create way points with it at present so that
what we are doing.
If you set the Garmin GPS 72 anchor alarm
when you set the way point at the time you drop the anchor at the bow then the
alarm could be of good use. Now however you cannot lose power or turn off the
alarm or the GPS will lose that position and the anchor position for the alarm
will be lost. So as this is an option for us we will purchase a Garmin 72 power
cable. That way after setting the alarm at the bow we can plug it into the
house batteries and it can run for the duration of our time at that anchoring spot.
Actually I think the GPS mark needs to be set over the anchor once the anchor is set, which means taking the dinghy over to the anchor float...Then the GPS mark will be on the actual spot where the anchor is. The mark will be the center of the swing. If you set the mark from the bow and not the anchor, then every time the bow moves the alarm will go off because the bow is not the center of the swing. There are anchoring programs for I-Phones and I-Pods that are suppose to be pretty good, but I can't give you a name.
ReplyDeleteDon