A real GPS receiver installed on a boat, transmitting on WiFi to a smart phone on board ?
Not a cellular positioning feature. No internet access, standalone.
-For middle of the ocean use, showing coordinates, no marine charts necessary-

What about a smart phone with no service provider (or out of range). Would it display the position from that WiFi gadget ?
In other words, a real GPS receiver at a fixed position on a ship and a handheld reading display ?

 

How about this?

 

Nice ! Thank you.

I was looking at
----> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dual-XGPS15...074686&hash=item27ea76217d:g:-0AAAOSwxCxT5PrV
but unsure if Bluetooth will have the range.

 

I wouldn't spend anywhere near that much! I used one of these for years and it was very good. You can find them new under $30 and used under $10. Those might just need a battery to be good as new.

Yes, it's bluetooth and I can't tell you what the range is like. It's so small that I always just used it within a couple feet of the smartphone.

[update] Wait a minute. What smartphone doesn't have a genuine GPS chip these days? I thought the law actually requires it.

 

Thank you wayneh.
Smartphones with real GPS chips built-in are some Samsung and some iphones as far as I knew.

And a similar to yours ---> http://www.ebay.com/itm/TomTom-MKii...531459&hash=item1eb74a62ec:g:MaYAAMXQuTNTNbui

Have some concern about WiFi... Would you suspect that a higher powered WiFi may deafen the GPS reception ? Wired ones to USB are abundant.

 

Would you suspect that a higher powered WiFi may deafen the GPS reception ?

Out of ignorance I would expect that whoever designed it did so properly, and that it will work fine. Never used a WiFi one. I would expect it to need more battery power than modern Bluetooth.

 

[update] Wait a minute. What smartphone doesn't have a genuine GPS chip these days? I thought the law actually requires it.

TS might want to have the GPS remote and with the phone down in the cabin where there is no or poor GPS reception.

 

A real GPS receiver installed on a boat, transmitting on WiFi to a smart phone on board ?
Not a cellular positioning feature. No internet access, standalone.
-For middle of the ocean use, showing coordinates, no marine charts necessary-

What about a smart phone with no service provider (or out of range). Would it display the position from that WiFi gadget ?
In other words, a real GPS receiver at a fixed position on a ship and a handheld reading display ?

To answer your other question. A GPS receiver does not need a service provider be it a dedicated receiver or a phone or a tablet device. The exception would be if you wanted traffic rerouting which is unlikely on your boat. Your problem is getting marine charts. I don't know if they are available for a phone or not. You would need to download them into your phone as you might not always have a internet connection when on your boat. Of course you could do it the "old fashioned way" and transpose the position from the GPS to the paper chart like I used to do with LORAN and my first GPS. Later I bought a dedicated GPS from Garmin with marine charts. It was a godsend on a couple of occasions where I had limited visibility.

 

Your problem is getting marine charts.

There are plenty of options. Biggest hurdle is cost.

https://www.sailmagazine.com/diy/navigating-the-app-world

 

[update] Wait a minute. What smartphone doesn't have a genuine GPS chip these days? I thought the law actually requires it.

My Samsung J7 2016 has it. Served well to navigate in the hills to find my brother's home, twice.

While I keep it off all the time, still to identify when it is automatically started, probably a specific situation with a specific software.

 

[update] Wait a minute. What smartphone doesn't have a genuine GPS chip these days? I thought the law actually requires it.

You mean an actual satellite GPS chip? I own a Samsung S8, and to my knowledge, it doesn't have one!

 

You mean an actual satellite GPS chip? I own a Samsung S8, and to my knowledge, it doesn't have one!

I think you will find it does. have a look at this app, it will show you the GNSS data. Depending on the version of S8, it can also receive Galileo, BieDou and GLONASS.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.gpstest

 

I think you will find it does. have a look at this app, it will show you the GNSS data. Depending on the version of S8, it can also receive Galileo, BieDou and GLONASS.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.gpstest

OMG!!! It really does! ... thanks for the link, the app works beautifully!

 

OMG!!! It really does! ... thanks for the link, the app works beautifully!

I'm not sure how this panned out. Maybe GPS is not technically required, but I think it's become moot because you can't hardly sell a "smart"phone that lacks GPS.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394177,00.asp

 

I'm not sure how this panned out. Maybe GPS is not technically required, but I think it's become moot because you can't hardly sell a "smart"phone that lacks GPS.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394177,00.asp

Yeah, but I thought that my phone was using pseudo-GPS, in which the phone calculates position by triangulating between cell towers, and not through satellites. Turns out it's really receiving satellite info.

 

Yeah, but I thought that my phone was using pseudo-GPS, in which the phone calculates position by triangulating between cell towers, and not through satellites. Turns out it's really receiving satellite info.

I believe this feature is required by law today, at least in the US.

 

I believe this feature is required by law today, at least in the US.

That was my impression but a brief search didn't find verification.

 

That was my impression but a brief search didn't find verification.

I might be confusing it with E911 which can be done with cell towers.

 

Yeah, but I thought that my phone was using pseudo-GPS, in which the phone calculates position by triangulating between cell towers, and not through satellites. Turns out it's really receiving satellite info.

Keep in mind, it does that too. This way initial fix does not need to wait for the almanac to be downloaded. Back in the old days, this could take up to 12.5 minutes. No young person is going to wait that long to find there nearest trendy coffee shop.....