Thanks for the info.
> Your best option is
buying a Raymarine dome that does work with your C90. Another option is to sell your C90
I was afraid as much was true. Unfortunately the C90 is just one part of an all Ramarine install (autopilot w/remote, sounder,
hull speed, wind). In fact, the
Furuno radar is the only thing not Raymarine (well, that and the Standard Horizon Matrix that was hacked into the system to provide an
AIS feed).
> Many of the new chartplotters have wifi integration now that allows ipad display - I don't know if yours does. Navico offers that ability.
Humm... more choices. What I'd really like is something that sniffs the
Seatalk and/or
NMEA bus and dumps the sentences to Wifi... seems like a simple RFC to write, but I suppose the
NMEA organization would come after anyone that tried.
So... just to make sure I understand, my options are:
1 - buy a broadband 3G/4G radar with matching chartplotter plus GoFree just to get the ipad functional
2 - buy just the broadband 3G/4G radar dome and run OpenCPN with the appropriate plugin
...or, is a third option possible?
> OpenCPN has a couple plugins that accept radar input,
This is what interests me the most. I think OpenCPN is the non-proprietary way forward. I'm perfectly happy to strap an ipad to the binnacle to get radar and provide a backup CP. OpenCPN on a tablet/computer on the inside provides additional backup and additional features (satellite/sw
weather, grib plotting and the like)
I had heard that a regular, generic wifi gateway (I like mikrotik) was sufficient to duplicate the functionality of GoFree. Seems like the GoFree, with it's huge heat sink, might be a bit of a power pig.
> Many chartplotters have an output for an external
alarm
...and this is the main fly in the ointment. If I go the ipad/openCPN
route, I lose the alarm functionality. I'd hate to spend $2k for "a machine that goes 'Ping!'".