VHF & GPS - Will This Work?

[whisper]

Hi, I am currently rebuilding an SR4 that will be used on the Solent. At the moment I have a console mounted compass, hand held vhf and a flare pack but I was wondering if fitting a fixed VHF with DSC connected to GPS would be a good advantage.

I was thinking of purchasing an ICOM M411 and a Garmin 72 handheld GPS with the marine mount and the Garmin data cable to connect the two together. The space I have will be very limited so the GPS must be quite small.

Is there anything I have missed here and will the £250 - £300 cost be worth it?

Thanks in advance

[gotchiguy]

We recently took delivery of the Standard Horizon HX851, as a back up to our "unreliable" main unit. Its a handheld, but incorporates full DSC functionality enabling you to MMSI call other ships and even ask them for a position request and subsequently allows you to navigate to their position. Our old boat didn't have a fixed set, but this radio would have easily substituted for one. Maybe you could consider it as an alternative?

http://www.marine-electronics-review...zon-hx851.html

[Poly]

Originally Posted by whisper

Hi, I am currently rebuilding an SR4 that will be used on the Solent. At the moment I have a console mounted compass, hand held vhf and a flare pack but I was wondering if fitting a fixed VHF with DSC connected to GPS would be a good advantage.

I was thinking of purchasing an ICOM M411 and a Garmin 72 handheld GPS with the marine mount and the Garmin data cable to connect the two together. The space I have will be very limited so the GPS must be quite small.

Is there anything I have missed here and will the £250 - £300 cost be worth it?

Thanks in advance

You don't NEED it but you might like it.

If space is really limited then an option is to go for one of the radios (like the SH1500E) which has a remote handet option - you can put the whole thing inside the console and just have the remote station on the console taking up much less space. Personally I'd rather have a bigger plotter / gps screen than the radio itself most of which isn't really needed.

[Channel Ribs]

Originally Posted by whisper

Is there anything I have missed here and will the £250 - £300 cost be worth it?

That setup will work nicely.

You should be able to pick up an Icom for about 120 pounds and a Garmin 72 for about the same, though a nearly new one changed hands on here for 50 quid recently.

The 72 has been replaced with the 78 by the way, priced around 200 pounds.

If you have got room for the 72 on its mount then you might just be able to fit a 451 (proper fixed plotter) in the same spot?

[whisper]

Thanks for the advice. I like the idea of a bigger plotter, the Garmin 451s looks good as it has the option to add a transducer

is there anything else that compares to this unit?