"

Hi Daniel,

In my opinion, the most knowledgeable guy in marine electronics is Phil Lee with Cay Electronics in Portsmouth, RI. Rather than answer myself, I called Phil and here is his answer. Personally, I would take his recommendation.

"There are many brands of hand held GPS units available but the most economical is a GPS “Puck” that is just a receiver and is powered by your USB port on the computer. Holux make some as do other manufacturers like Garmin and they can be found on the Internet for as little as $35 plus shipping

See this link. http://www.google.com/products?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ACGW_enUS345US357&q=usb+gps+receiver+for+laptops&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=EJCqS7nOEdvNjAe8zuj4BA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQrQQwAA

As for hand held units Garmin units tend to output a proprietary sentence and a second “Utility Program” is needed to convert this into the more common NMEA format. My advice would to look at the Magellan series as many of their units can output a NMEA sentence that is compatible with all charting software.

See link. http://www.magellangps.com/products/product.asp?segID=425&prodID=1912

The cable is an optional extra, but overall the Magellan will be the easiest and most economical to interface with your computer navigation software. It's a simple plug and play setup.

Phil Lee"

So, pardon me for pawning this question off on Phil, but I trust his opinion and would follow his lead in anything involving marine electronics.

All the best,

Captain Ian Fagg

"

Hi Daniel,

In my opinion, the most knowledgeable guy in marine electronics is Phil Lee with Cay Electronics in Portsmouth, RI. Rather than answer myself, I called Phil and here is his answer. Personally, I would take his recommendation.

"There are many brands of hand held GPS units available but the most economical is a GPS “Puck” that is just a receiver and is powered by your USB port on the computer. Holux make some as do other manufacturers like Garmin and they can be found on the Internet for as little as $35 plus shipping

See this link. http:// "