REVIEWED G-COMBO CHARTPLOTTER AND FISHFINDER
SCOTT THOMAS checks out the G-combo Chartplotter and Fishfinder from Australian marine electronics company GME.
Established marine electronics company GME is fairly new to the sounder market. While many boats have a GME EPIRB or marine radio fitted, depth sounders and GPS is something GME hasn’t had much involvement in since parting with Garmin a couple of years back. GME is a homegrown Australian company and some of its products (EPIRBs and VHF radios) are even manufactured in the western Sydney suburb of Gladesville.
I was keen to see what the company came up with after it announced a new line of sounders and sounder/GPS combos late last year. GME released three products in the range – the G-Combo (Chartplotter/Fishfinder), G-Plot GPS chartplotter and G-Fish fishfinder. I received a loan unit from GME’s Matthew Heap – the top end G-Combo unit complete with C-Map charts – for testing on my Quintrex Hornet. The only question now was where to install it. Being such a small boat I’d never considered installing a unit towards the bow. But it actually makes a lot of sense. The passenger gets a perfect view while the boat’s moving, and the driver, who should be concentrating on what’s ahead, can still take a quick glance thanks to the bright screen and easy-to-read data.
The G-Combo is a mid-priced unit aimed at serious sportfishermen with plenty of innovative features packed into the one unit.
The unit is available in one size – 142m or 5.6″ diagonally – with high resolution of 640 (H) x 480 (W) pixels. It’s a nice bright screen which can be viewed in strong sunlight and from quite a distance. The screen has 10 levels of brightness adjustment along with a bright night mode.
As the name suggests, the G-Combo features both sounder and GPS chartplotter and comes available with C-Map Max cartography, which is stored on a SD card. The chart has a neat animated marker feature for finding navigational markers in low visibility and the option of aerial photography for certain areas. The chart can be viewed in perspective and standard mode.
It has an inbuilt 16 channel GPS antenna and can be hooked up to an external antenna depending on where it’s mounted. The unit is also NMEA 2000 compatible for sharing engine gauges, data, etc.
It’s an easy enough unit to operate and master after a bit of practice and common sense. The option to customise screens and then store up to six screen configurations makes the unit much more simple to use on the water. The screen has the option of full sounder, full chart, can be split sounder/chart or four -way screen. You also have the option to show data such as speed.
The digital fishfinder is 600 watt, dual frequency (50/200 kHz). Frequencies can be set manually or automatically and can be set to a split frequency screen for viewing both at once, depending on water depths.
The G-Combo comes complete with tranducer, which records speed, temperature and depth. It’s also supplied with a protective cover and can be mounted flush or on the supplied bracket mount.
More information at www.GME.net.au.
