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I can
still vividly recall using my first GPS, a Garmin 45, to successfully
negotiate a delivery to New York Harbor in fog that was so thick we couldn’t
see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge even as we steamed underneath it! Experiences
like that made GPS, and Garmin. The 45 still works ten years later, but
its output seems as antiquated as a sextant’s compared to the 60C’s
amazing versatility. The handheld’s reasonably bright, 2.6-inch transflective
screen can plot my vessel on Garmin’s own full-detail BlueCharts
(whose coverage was recently extended), track an island trail on a topo,
or deliver automated turn-by-turn street routing. It has an 8-MB basemap
plus 56 MB of internal storage, accessible via a fast USB PC interface
and included routing software. The $482 60C is waterproof, runs 30 hours
on two AA batteries, and even includes a few games. Garmin has also introduced
the $535 76C, which has similar features in a buttons-above-screen case
with 5 MB of extra marine basemap and double the chart storage. Users
of Garmin fixed plotters who burn their own chart cards could set up either
handheld as a fully redundant backup. Users of pre-programmed BlueChart
cards might consider the larger, $746 276C portable—yet another new
model—which accepts them.
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