I don’t understand why this has to be so difficult…
I am in the process of renovating the dinghy on our new-to-us boat, setting it up to be both a tender for the big boat, as well as a fishing platform in good conditions. In case you’re interested, I’m tracking the progress on my blog:
https://mvcesc.wordpress.com/categor...ishing-dinghy/
One of the additions I’m making is a fishfinder with GPS plotting capabilities. This is on a dinghy, so I want it to be small (4 or 5 inches), and relatively cheap (sub $300). I will not be flush mounting.
Now, the hard part. I also want the ability to display AIS targets and DSC sources via NMEA 1080 data inputs. This is an almost impossible spec to search for.
I did find the Garmin Echomap 42Cv that has all the capabilities (
https://buy.garmin.com/en-SG/digital/p/577144#specs ) but it requires a Bluechart SD ($75+) to work in our area. And what’s the difference between the 42Cv, the 43Cv, the 44Cv, and the 45Cv other than price?
This is just about the point where I threw up my hands and opened up the browser…