Mobile nav / location setup

[Zhent]

Good morning -

Sorry for what may be basic questions -

• If I bought an iPad or similar tablet to use as a personal chart / nav system, would it need to connect to a boats antenna or is the internal GPS enough?

• Is there any way to connect an InReach to an iPad for the GPS location, rather than a separate physical antenna?


Reason for the questions - over the next year I'll be sailing on a few different boats; both as part of a share program and a family friend who is checking me out on theirs. I am sure that each will have its own navigation system in place, but I was thinking about bringing my own system with me as I move around that I would be more familiar with, or in the event of an issue.

[MartinR]

Ipad GPS antenna should be good, if you have the cellular model.

[Zhent]

Great, thanks. I know that there is a GPS antenna in there, but I wasn't sure if it worked once I was out of cell range.

Is there a preferred app or set of apps, or do they all show sort of the same stuff, depending on the charts you're using?

[Jubilee39]

I would turn off your wifi and check for gps signal. Don't know about I pad but some samsung tablets only got position from cell towers. Been using android tablet for navigation for several years on various ocean passages, Indian ocean, red sea etc. No problems below decks with gps reception