GPS position

A

Anonymous

Guest
In Initial Setup there are fields for longitudinal and lateral gps position. The manual suggests those numbers should be measured from an imaginary rectangular envelope corner at port bow. So in my case with the gps being positioned right at the center stern of a 60' 18' beam vessel I'd put 60 and +9.
HOWEVER... this doesn't make sense to me. First off there is no beam entry anywhere so the port offset doesn't tell it anything useful. Is it meant to be +/- feet from center? Also the inclusion of "-port" suggests a centerline offset as who would have their gps outside their hull envelope?
 
Setting this up isn't really that important for small boats so many people leave it blank. The larger the boat the more important it is.

You want to ensure you have input your boat length into your setup because this tells the system the bow to stern measurement.

Using the diagram from the manual (below) you need to provide two measurements to show where you placed the GPS antenna on the boat.GPSpositon.JPG

The first is the GPS antenna mounted position measurement from the bow. (Longitudinal) (Note the origin point shown in diagram). If your antenna is 10 feet back from the bow; then you enter 10 ft.

The second is the (Lateral) mounted position from the port side. If your antenna is 2ft from your port side of the boat; then you enter 2 ft.

With these measurements the system knows exactly where you mounted your GPS antenna.
 
That is what the manual suggests yes, but without knowing the beam the system can't make use of the "offset from port" number. Hence my confusion.
 
Sorry, I must be missing the point of these settings. Is the point not to calculate the center of the ship to place it most accurately on a chart?
 
Back
Top