Replacement for Loran

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pklein

I sail on Lake Michigan and have gotten along quite happily with an ancient Loran mounted near the nav station and using a handheld GPS up on deck.  However, I now have a fancy new VHF radio that has the emergency button feature that will broadcast your position and a distress signal if activated.  However, it needs to be interfaced to a positioning device.  I know my days for the Loran are limited but I'm really not excited about spending $500 for a permanent GPS.  Does anybody have suggestions that are less pricey. I don't really want a chartplotter.  

We cross the Lake at night several times during the season without any accompanying fleet and it would be comforting to have my VHF communications up to 21st century standards.

BTW this situation arose because the new radio was on sale.  The new radio has the remote access mike a feature I really wanted. It's going to be hardwired (when the ice melts off the boat)which will then provide me with a full power (receive and transmit) radio at the helm.  I have missed some calls from passing freighters at night on my handheld because of it's limited range.  Pilots of big ships on Lake Michigan have frequently been nice enough to call me during the night if visibility is poor and they pick me up on their radar as being on a possible intercept course. I have a reflector but no radar.

Gene Regan

check you gps, some can be interfaced with the radio and autopilot also through a cable adapter.My garmin gps76 has this feature and the cable cost about 28.00

SteveLyle

Phil,

As Gene says, many handheld GPS' can be interfaced with other devices through NMEA 0183.  The upcoming Mainsheet has a Tech Notes article on mounting a Garmin GPSMap76 at the helm, and interfacing it to an autopilot and Nexus instruments.  Maybe it can give you some ideas.

Are you sure that your LORAN doesn't support NMEA 0183?  If it does, then that would be the easiest answer.

Steve