What Is the Difference Between a Heading Sensor and a GPS?
Transcript is auto-generated.
hi youtubers jeff cote here with ask pys we've got a question from a fellow voter cheryl asks a really good question by the way um common question that i get and this is all about details right here so listen in on this one this one is good what is the difference between a heading sensor and a gps should i have both on my boat we like to anchor and we'll be traveling to alaska next summer okay this is a good one i like it so gps is provides a value called course on ground that is basically effectively where your boat is traveling to not where your boat is heading and if that's confusing hang on and let me demystify all this so the reality is that our boats are traveling in a direction with the sum of different forces acting upon our boats so what are those forces well one of them is propulsion so propulsion could be from your engine or from your sails right and so with that you're moving in a given direction the next is tide or current there are the reality is there are tides and currents in this world and the slower your boat moves those currents like here in the pacific northwest can be two knots three knots those currents affect where your boat is going to go even if you don't have wind or propulsion your boat is actually moving at two to three knots wherever the current or the tide is bringing you to right and then the other part that's also really interesting is you also have wind so you've got wind pushing you somewhere you've got tide which effectually affects currents and then you also have propulsion which is either your own the motor or wind and so in the pacific northwest and a lot of places on earth you actually rarely go where you're actually pointing and the that's confusing yeah you're actually not going where you're pointing your boat so where the boat is heading is actually different than where it's going and those two vectors and if you enable them on your chart plotter you can actually if you have an autopilot you have by default a heading sensor and the heading sensor is going to be directly obviously facing the bow of your boat but your course on ground might be like this so you're going to have a delta between what you're where you're going and with your boat and where you're heading or where you're heading with your boat and where you're going with your gps and the delta between those is course on ground via heading and the reason why heading is really important is if you ever want to do a chart overlay or radar overlay onto a chart the radar overlay is going to be skewed if your boat heading is not included or not part of the chart plotter because the radar overlay won't understand that you're actually not going where you're pointing and so with a heading sensor connected to a chart plotter your ar overlay is going to be perfectly synced some radar manufacturers actually don't allow radar overlay unless you have a heading sensor so simply you cannot do radar overlay without a heading sensor garmin makes budget heading sensors and there are more expensive heading sensors that are sort of built with autopilots if you have an autopilot you either have a fluxgate compass which is a heading sensor or it's going to be a digital gyro heading sensor and you're going to also be able to know where your boat is actually pointing to as opposed to where it's going so the question by cheryl was do i should i have both and my answer is most definitely you should have a heading sensor on your boat and you should have obviously a gps with course overground thank you for watching this video if you've got further questions and you're wondering about your own boat please ask questions below or send us an email with your questions and we'll get to them hopefully as soon as possible if you haven't done so please subscribe to our youtube and get our weekly updates we're posting about four videos a week right now and also thanks for watching
