Garmin Training

[JMAT]

Good day all. The final few months of waiting for my new 325 to come in are going to be brutal. I just finished my Florida BoatUS Boaters Safety course now I need something else to help pass the time. I am looking for some good training on Garmin products. Namely the 8618XSV and Garmin Radar. The GPS unit I had on my last fresh water boat was a Hummingbird with a 6" screen made in 2010. Does anyone know of any good online training classes? Would like to learn as much about the units as possible prior to taking ownership. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[seasick]

I am not aware of any Gamin tutorials from Garmin.
Lowrance on the other hand, produced a great set of tutorials that you can find on Youtube. Take a look at the ones on basics first. Also download the user manual for your device and read it. Many functions are similar between brands but may be called different things.

https://www.youtube.com/user/lowrance

When you get the new unit, you will probably be a bit lost. The trick is to play around and practice the things you will need to do; learn the menus and how to manage multiple screens. If you have integration of engine date with your unit, that will require some learning also.
I find that the Garmin historically has somewhat more intuitive menus than other brands. On a positive note, a lot of the newer models of multi-function displays have built-in user manuals

 

[Hookup1]

Don't just run around when you get the new boat. Create a few exercises and practice them. The Garmin units are fairly intuitive and work well in auto mode. Start there.

Use the charptlotter to create a few waypoint on nearby buoys. Navigate to one of them and then try another. While you are at it drop a marker outside your inlet and name it 0000-Home or something like that. It will be the first waypoint in your list when returning home.

Identify a few well know wrecks in your area - large and small in 75 feet of water. Create waypoints for them. Navigate to them and run your sounder. Find and explore the wrecks. Try different transducers if you have more than one. Take gain and range out of auto and try different setting. Switch to split zoom with bottom lock to see how that works.

While you are traveling during the day use the radar. Most guys don't practice the radar until its dark or stormy. You want to be comfortable with what the radar shows in the daytime so you can trust what you see when you loose visual. Pilots practice this "under the hood" during training where they can't see out the windshield and have to fly solely by instruments.

The videos are all great to show you how to use the unit. But remember the unit is a problem solving tool - create the problems you will encounter and use the tools you have solve them.

 

[Paul_A]

Years ago I went into a West Marine for something and stopped at the electronics display. Saw my same Garmin on display and asked the guy a question about it. He spent a bunch of time showing me things I had no idea about.

You might call around and see if a local store has an electronics guru.

 

[doug228]

I think garmin has some information on youtube if you dig around.

 

[JMAT]

Thanks for all the replies. I understand there is no substitute for using the product as much as possible. I did find tutorials on youtube on the 8000 series units. Just trying to kill time to learn as much as possible before I am ready to set sail. It's amazing how much technology has changed.

 

[rockpool]

8618xsv ?!? please please tell me where you found that one - I need it too!

The 8x Garmins work like big iPads - touch, stretch etc, they are pretty intuitive. You need to be super comfortable with the MOB workflow, and of course distress if you're integrating with a VHF (which I expect you are). Other than that you'll find nothing so complex as to make you have to read the manual. Most of the UX is for personal preference - which combination of functions do you want to see at once, where should the radar be in relation to the chart, do you prefer overlay or separate windows etc. As Paul said - go to West Marine and ask the electronics guy for a demo, or play with the one on the display.

If you're lucky enough to have the chartplotter in a box at home, you can always plug it into a 12v battery and put it in simulation mode yourself. It only needs two wires connected to work.

 

[glacierbaze]

Couple years ago I was getting email invitations to live Garmin tutorials, that you had to sign up for. But then afterwards, they would put them on YouTube, and they are probably still there.

Just checked, there are a bunch there, everything from watches to airplanes to boat electronics, so put in your model, or at least series like echo map, to narrow down the choices. Search Garmin tutorials.

 

[luckydude]

I have an 8610, smaller version of what you have. There is a lot to learn in there. Here's the stuff I use all the time:

Charts: shaded relief, it shows reefs, sand, etc. Great for fishing.
Waypoints and figure out how to name the important ones (it's easy) and then find "Navigate to". Learn to zoom in as you get close, handy for picking up crab pots.
Find the tides under info.
Radar, I have the 18" dome, it's about $2K. Seems to work OK, sometimes it sees stuff, sometimes it doesn't. I don't have a lot of time using it, so listen to someone who does.
Fish finder, I have sidevu and have never found it useful. I use traditional. I need to play around with frequencies, there are tutorials on youtube, the summary is you can have a skinny but deep view, a wide but shallow view, or the middle of the road. I think I'm on middle of the road and it loses bottom at about 400 feet. I need to play around with frequencies.

If you have the SteadyCast (which you should have to make your radar work), make your dealer calibrate that. It's a pain in the ass.

As others have said, play with it. It's got way more features than anyone needs, in my opinion, you need to figure out the subset that works on your waters. Good luck, and 18 inches? Wow, yours is bigger

 

[Macrophylla]

JMAT talk to your dealer and see if their rigger or rep can help train you when you take delivery (my rigger knows the electronics/NEMA but doesn't seem to be much of a boater so I struck out there) the Youtube videos are pretty basic (at least the ones from Garmin), I actually reached out to Garmin sales asking if they did classes or would do a class for 10-15 current and potential Garmin customers at my marina and was told to talk to my dealer. So what I've done is spend every day that I could that wasn't a good day for boating sitting on the boat getting familiar with the interface and options, it's helped a lot.

 

[JMAT]

The 8618 was a total typo. It's the 8616. So I based the equipment based on what the dealer recommended. I then bounced it off of a friend who has a Pursuit 326 DC and he agreed. Some recommended the open array but I chose the 24" dome radar instead. My package includes the following:

24" Radar Fantom 24" Dome

GXM 54 SiriusXM SAT WX/Audio Receiver

GPSMAP 8616 MFD g3 US-CAN-BAHAMAS

GPSMAP 8616 XSV MFD/Sonar US-CAN-BAHAMAS

VHF315 MODULAR W/Hailer & GPS

Xdrc CHIRP-M Bronze LP 20 Tilt 8-Pin

8' Galaxy VHF Antenna 6db

Marine Cable Network 6'

NMEA 2000 Starter Kit

I still have time to make changes if need be but I would think this setup will be more than adequate for my needs. I will definitely stop by West Marine and snoop around. I did find some stuff on Youtube and will be going through it. Again, this last 3 months of waiting is going to be excruciating so I am looking to fill this time with as much education as possible.

I did find a guy on Youtube, Justin Lee, who is a dealer mechanic and works on Grady's, Pursuits and Tiara's. He works for a dealer out of the Tampa area and has some really good repair video's.

He will sometimes take you through the boat as well. I learned more about Grady's watching him, doing somewhat simple repairs, than anywhere else. He works on a lot of the Panda generators on his videos also.

Here is one of his videos on replacing a windshield wiper motor.

 

[Hookup1]

The transducer is an excellent chirp transducer. I would consider adding a GT51M-TH transducer as a second transducer or replacing the above transducer. I would also get the second unit as a 8616xsv, $500 more but gives you more transducer flexibility down the road.

If you decide to add an audio system and decide on Fusion go with the Apollo series. If you start with the old series and upgrade the amps are not compatible.

 

[JMAT]

Hookup,

Great call. I called my dealer and he recommended the GT34UHD as the secondary. I will have to research what the difference is. Thanks for the info.

 

[doug228]

The gt51 is the only sidevu transducer that does decent depth. All the other ones only have a practical use in less than 75 feet of water. More geared toward shallow water.

If you need deep, the gt51 (260hz and 455hz) which includes a Medium chirp as well, would have intererence with your other transducer The GT41 has the same side imaging without the medium chirp built in.

Medium depth would be gt56 and it includes a High Wide frequency chirp (a good compliment to your medium chirp). Imaging frequencies are 455/800/1000. GT36 is the same transducer without the HW chirp.

The Gt34 has 800/1200.

As frequency goes up clarity gets better. But it comes at the cost of depth. I hardly use the 455hz sidevu unless i'm in less than 50 feet of water. 260hz is good to around 200. The clearvu down imaging works well on 455 to about 100 feet, on 260hz it goes to about 200 feet.

 

[Lt.Mike]

Years ago I went into a West Marine for something and stopped at the electronics display. Saw my same Garmin on display and asked the guy a question about it. He spent a bunch of time showing me things I had no idea about.

You might call around and see if a local store has an electronics guru.

When I was shopping for a new unit the manager at my local west marine was able to tell me everything I wanted to know about them and when settling on a Simrad he knew everything about it. imagine that, a salesman that actually knows about what he sells !
Just when you think their all gone.
He knew as much on the Garmins as well and from what I gather there are a lot of similarities between Simrad / Lowrance and Garmin in how they operate and understanding what your seeing.
I got a lot of info from Mike Smedleys videos on YouTube.
He has a lot of Sonar how tos.
Here’s a good one...

 

[Punchline Cap]

I don’t know if Garmin has printed manuals available, but my Raymarine unit does. I ordered the paperback manual and it has been very helpful in learning the workings of the unit. Using the scroll through menu on the actual unit is very time consuming and hard. It is much easier to read it in the manual and try it on the unit than to toggle back and forth from the manual to the functions of the unit. It can be also read and reviewed when you are not on your boat.

 

[luckydude]

OP, ask your dealer if you need steadycast. Maybe it is built into that 24" radar but I doubt it. What it is is a smarter GPS that knows which direction your boat is pointing even if you are not moving. It is also a more sensitive GPS that makes your radar work better (or something, it got added to my pile when I did radar and the radar was fairly useless without it).

 

[Hookup1]

OP, ask your dealer if you need steadycast. Maybe it is built into that 24" radar but I doubt it. What it is is a smarter GPS that knows which direction your boat is pointing even if you are not moving. It is also a more sensitive GPS that makes your radar work better (or something, it got added to my pile when I did radar and the radar was fairly useless without it).

With radar and an autopilot/magnetic heading sensor you can accurately drop markers on a nearby boat and check it out later. Without a magnetic sensor the heading is derived from the changing GPS position and isn't accurate when the boat is stopped.

The new Garmin units no longer ship with hardtop GPS antenna. They all use an older generation GPS19x internal GPS antenna for 3 meter accuracy. I installed the external GPX24xd. Multi-band GNSS for 1 meter GPS accuracy with built-in heading sensor.

 

[Ryhlick]

If you go to youtube and search Garmin Marine Webinars, several useful videos will pop up. Here are 3 good ones to start with.

 

[luckydude]

If you go to youtube and search Garmin Marine Webinars, several useful videos will pop up. Here are 3 good ones to start with.

Wow, those are poorly done. You can barely understand the guy and it's lots of words that aren't needed. I expected better (and yeah, I'm not just some opinion on the internet, I've taught grad and undergrad CS at UW-Madison and Stanford and given hundreds of technical talks).

I'll look for some better ones, and this is not on you Ryhlick, you're just trying to help, it's Garmin that needs to do better.

This one is pretty basic, I think someone is teaching a crew of people who are renting boats, not sure, but it is great if you are new to Garmin. I haven't watched the whole thing so I don't know how much he covers but I have been using my 8610xsv for over a year and I've learned stuff I didn't know in the first 10 minutes.