Raymarine Dragonfly Fishfinder/GPS

Not that I'm going to be able to cough up $650 anytime soon for a fish finder, but that doesn't mean I'm not drooling.   Raymarine's Dragonfly came out this month and won some awards at boat shows.

http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=6854

Big (5.7" dia) high res screen
CHIRP
down imaging
50 Channel GPS
"uncomplicated user interface"

It may or may not include Navionics Gold charts.


 

Figured out the charts based on the Westmarine website..

Raymarine Dragonfly - no chart = $649
Raymarine Dragonfly w/ Navionics Silver = $669
Raymarine Dragonfly w/ Navionics Gold = $719

Wish list has officially been updated.

No Facebook or Twitter on it?  lol

It's got everything else.  Sweet FFer.

Mmmmmmm Res o lu tion....

Looks cool.  You just fed me my next KFM article.  Thanks!

-Allen

50 Channel GPS

I always have wondered why this is really a feature.  There are only currently 32 satellites in the GPS constellation, with only 24 active and the others being redundant, and something like only 12 in "view" at any given time.   

OK, more channels do result in faster lock time.  So why not use lock time as the feature instead?   

-Allen

Do those 50 channels also count WAAS receptions?

i'm thinking it's pure marketing.... "we got more channels" hype. not every prospective buyer knows much about the gps cloud, so it sounds cool.

http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/11884/how-many-gps-channels-make-sense

Being able to search for more GPS satellites in parallel is the big draw.  The GPS signal is interleaved with the slots capable of supporting up to 1024 satellites.  A process called correlation allows the received to pick out the appropriate channels to lock in on.  More "channels" allows you to search for more satellites at the same time.

-Allen

Awesome! One more thing to dream about

Allen,Brian,
I'm used to working with DAGR, the military version of a handheld GPS unit.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Advanced_GPS_Receiver

 While we can normally operate with only 4-5 in sky view, usually we receive as many as 12 individual birds signals. My 788 w/gps, works almost as good, usually with 6-7 sky views locked in. and both are damn accurate, down to about 12 feet in the case of the humminbird, and half that normally with the DAGR running non secure off the civillian cloud. that's kind of why i look at 50 channels as a marketing ploy. If we can't physically see targets within those close CEPs when we get there, why do we need more channels? (yes i asked the Rockwell Collins guys this same question)

Allen,Brian,
I'm used to working with DAGR, the military version of a handheld GPS unit.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Advanced_GPS_Receiver

 While we can normally operate with only 4-5 in sky view, usually we receive as many as 12 individual birds signals. My 788 w/gps, works almost as good, usually with 6-7 sky views locked in. and both are damn accurate, down to about 12 feet in the case of the humminbird, and half that normally with the DAGR running non secure off the civillian cloud. that's kind of why i look at 50 channels as a marketing ploy. If we can't physically see targets within those close CEPs when we get there, why do we need more channels? (yes i asked the Rockwell Collins guys this same question)

As I said, or tried to explain ... to lock faster.  It's probably a bigger deal in power sensitive applications (mobile phones) where relocking is less power draw than staying locked.

-Allen