Raytheon 420D???

[Hans]

Anyone had any experience with this GPS? I have a line one at about half MRSP.

Hans

[hugh]

Hans, I talked to BoatUS about this unit and was told it is being dicontinued in favor of the 425. As I understand, the 420 is not WAAS compatible and takes the C charts instead of the Navionics. Because I fish mainly inland waters, the guy at BoatUS told me I would be happier with a unit that takes the Navionics charts. If I'm wrong on any of this info, would somebody please let me know. I'm close to purchasing a unit and leaning strongly toward the 425. Thanks

[ND]

Hans,
I've used one for over a year now and love it.^The size of the screen, the speed of panning,and the acuracy are second to none.
If your Mfsrp includes the antena ,go for it.
It does not have WAAS, but the differential has darn close repetability.(under 15 feet most of the time.)
The mapping catography is Navionics micro-chart.You'd have to check and see which chart you'd need.(little pricy if you need a bunch)
I see you gave up waiting for Pinpoint's .
Another plus for Raytheon is its networking.I use the GPS NEMA siginal to drive my autopilot while trolling.

[hugh]

Hans, sorry for the bad info on the cartography. I guess the 420 does take Navionics. Can someone then please tell me the difference between the 420 and 425, other than WAAS. Thanks.

[SeaCat]

Yup, both do take Navonics micro-charts. Other than WAAS on the 425 the features/specs look identical to me. Size of the chassis and display, # of waypoints and routes, 12 channel GPS, screen resolution are all identical.

Boaters World (www.boatersworld.com) has the 420 on closeout for $499 and the 425 for $599. BW also has the new Standard Horizon CP150 WAAS unit (uses CMap-NT carts) for $399.

Ryan

[TEAM_ALTO]

I've been looking at the Raytheon 425 for a while now. I like A lot of the features including the ablity to take a plot trail from your latest trolling pass and follow it back as a Route, thats if you have the unit coupled to a autopilot.

The only hold back I have about the unit is that it doen't have a detailed background map, that at least has the outlines of lakes . You will have some lakes now that navionics has, but until they make all the Hot Spot maps it makes it harder to navigate a lake. Currently I'm using the Lowrance Map Create CD and that works good to find your location on a lake.

If Lowrance came out with a GPS with the WAAS, would be nice.

Bob

[ND]

The raytheon 420D and 425.
420D : with differential siginal.
425: with WAAS siginal
It appears the the units are similiar or even same except the receiving antena.
If the extra coupla feet of accuracy are important it(425D) may
be upgaradable to WAAS with a different antena...?( I'm guessing)

[Meat]

Just how are you using the map create software with this unit?

[Scott D]

FYI - I found this information on units with WAAS on the internet. Thought some of you guys may be interested.

Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS):

This is a DGPS variant that uses geosynchronous satellites (two for continental US) to transmit the corrections on the same sort of frequency as the GPS birds. This means almost no hardware required, just a little microcode in your GPS unit. My guess is that the incremental cost is between zero and $.25 per unit. WAAS has recently become operational (in a test mode), and there are a few WAAS-ready GPS units on the market. These have any necessary hardware, but the manfacturers haven't released the microcode yet. I expect WAAS to be standard in all new GPS models from sometime in mid 2001 except perhaps on the extreme low end.
Accuracy is comparable to DGPS. The following units are rumored to be WAAS-ready (HW but no microcode yet):

Garmin eMap
Magellan 330 series
The following are ready to go for WAAS (HW and microcode):
Garmin eTrex Venture (March 2001 availability)
Garmin eTrex Legend
Garmin eTrex Vista (March 2001 availability)
Garmin 152 (Spring 2001 availability?)
Garmin 162 (requires 2.61 firmware from Garmin's website)
Garmin 168 (requires 2.61 firmware from Garmin's website)
Northstar 952 WAAS
Raytheon RayNav 300
Raytheon RayChart 320
Raytheon RayChart 425
Raytheon RS120
Standard 150 (April 2001 availability, looks like a superb buy).
Standard 160 (April 2001? availability)
Standard 170 (April 2001? availability)

[Team Alto]

Meat,

I'm using the Eagle accumap 12 with the Lowrance MapCreate CD. I select a area off of a US map and download it from my home computer to the gps. The eagle has two memory chips in the back that stores the maps. You can reuse the chips or buy new ones and make a library. It takes two 4 meg chips to cover Wisconsin.

Bob

[Scott D]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-10-01 AT 11:46AM (CST)[p]I am considering the Garmin units a little more seriously now. I found on their website that the GPS152 is WAAS capable. It appears that Garmin has a CD-ROM similar to Lowrances that you can use for inland lakes. The website (WWW.Garmin.com) has an interactive map that you can zoom in on and see the lakes that you want. I think the CD-Rom is not compatible with the 152 but is with the GPS162. I think the software upgrade that is downloadable from the website makes the 162 WAAS capable.