Article by Pat Schrawder
Just when you thought there wasn’t anything else they could do to a basic old GPS unit, along comes Furuno with its new GP33 and RD33. They aren’t old and they sure aren’t “basic”. For not being a video chart plotter, it has just about all their features except the cartography display.
The GP33 main unit is waterproof and measures roughly 6” by 5” with a 4.3” “sunlight viewable” color LCD screen. Its large digital readout and high resolution make it much easier to read than many other units on the market.
It is a conventional 12 channel GPS receiver with WAAS correction, but it has so much more. Let’s look at some of its impressive features:
•Stores up to 10,000 marks/waypoints, 100 routes & 3,000 track points.
•7 display modes including two “user definable”.
•It supports both NMEA0183 and the newer CAN bus interfaces.
•Both graphical and digital display options showing range and bearing, highway steering approach, speed over ground, course over ground, current position, track line, estimated time of arrival, cross track error, compass ribbon, date, time, satellite status, digital compass, and digital speedometer. Seven of these are preset and there are two remaining that the user can customize.
The RD33 has the same size, shape and controls as the GP33 and it also has a color LCD. It can be fed and display much of the above information the GP33 has getting its data from another source such as your radar, chart plotter, etc. making it a great remote display. In addition, you can run a transducer directly to the unit making it a multipurpose sounder and data display.
Let’s look at some of its features:
•Customizable display format from full-screen to a 6-way split screen presentation.
•Like the GP33, it supports both CAN bus and NMEA0183 interfaces.
•Two independent CAN bus input and output ports incorporated for daisy chain networking.
•Simultaneous alarm monitoring capabilities for water temperature, depth, speed, arrival, anchor, XTE, trip, odometer, timer and countdown timer, roll & pitch, wind speed, wind direction, and battery.
To summarize, the GP33 is an enhanced GPS with WAAS that stands alone or can feed position data to other pieces of equipment on your boat. One particular feature I like is the color screen. You can set up track lines in different colors and erase them by color. This would be very useful for a boat setting out pots or lines of tackle.
The RD33 is a stand-alone remote display that needs position information fed to it from other sources on your boat, but can also act as a digital sounder. Its best feature is that it reads to very shallow depths.
Pat and her husband, Larry are owners of L&L Marine Electronics in West Ocean City, MD.
