The Watercooler-What's New, Hot Items, Advice, Tips, & More

It’s that time of year again. As we look forward to the holiday season, it’s time to start checking off your gift list and prepare to visit with family and share in the holiday spirit.

Black Friday prices have already been released on dozens of top gift picks. These limited time sales include several Garmin GPS Smartwatches, Handheld Satellite Communicators and Bike GPS units. If you’re unsure which model to select, just give us a call and we can help you differentiate which model will best suit your needs. We also have some amazing specials on Marine GPS units and many more to come. Competitive pricing, free, fast shipping and availability are all things to consider when buying this holiday season.

Since you may be buying earlier than usual this year, you may be concerned with our holiday return policy. We have extended holiday returns that allow for more generous return/exchange times. Orders placed during the holiday season from Nov.1st through Dec. 3rd, 2021 are subject to our special holiday return policy and returns will be allowed until January 17th, 2022. Purchases made after December 3rd will be covered by our everyday 45 Day Return Policy. Read our full policy for details here. 

Finding the perfect gift can be a challenge so we are here to help. Give us a call and let’s talk about what you or your family/friend is looking for and how we can help. Oftentimes, we can point you in the right direction!

Happy Tuesday! It’s a busy day here at The GPS Store, Inc. The boat show team has returned from the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show and we are gearing up to process and ship orders. What a great show! We had an awesome turnout at our booth and had the opportunity to connect with new customers and catch up with old ones.

Several new products launched at the show like the new Raymarine Cyclone Solid State Open Array Radar and new Garmin Fantom 18x and 24x Radars. The new Fantom 18x/24x radars are available in white or the new, sleek black option.

The new GPSMAP 79 series was announced and we expect them to be a huge hit. The GPSMAP 79 series has a new scratch resistant display with 2.5 times the resolution of previous versions. If seeing your handheld GPS in bright sunlight has been a challenge in the past, you may want to add the GPSMAP 79 to your wish-list. Choose between 2 models- the GPSMAP 78s has a preloaded worldwide basemap and the GPSMAP 78sc comes preloaded with Garmin’s BlueChart G3 Coastal Charts.

It’s an exciting time in the marine electronics industry and we are committed to bringing you the best there is and keeping you up to date on new technologies.

We are looking ahead to one of our busiest times of the year, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday gifting season. We have secured some deeply discounted specials that we think will be huge hits as we move into the new year.

The Fort Lauderdale boat show starts tomorrow. Our Boat Show team is finishing booth setup today and the show starts tomorrow and runs through Sunday. We are located in booth 653 and invite you to come by and see us! Don’t forget to buy your tickets in advance. There is no box office onsite at the show this year. Purchase digital tickets online through the link below:

https://www.flibs.com/en/attend/tickets.html

Show season also rings in a time of new product launches and announcements. Raymarine just released their new Cyclone Solid State Radar. Offered in two models and several array sizes, the Cyclone and Cyclone Pro radars are going to be popular additions to Raymarine network systems.

Garmin’s exciting radar announcement includes their new GMR Fantom 18x/24x Radars featuring black radomes for a sleek, sophisticated look.

There have also been some exciting price changes on existing Garmin GMR Fantom (GA01706, GA01707) models. The Fantom Radars offer MotionScope doppler technology and Auto Bird Gain providing added situational awareness while navigating congested waters or poor weather.

We will keep you up to date on any exciting news from the show including new product releases, product improvements and demos!  If you have a chance to visit the show in-person, swing by and see us. If you’re interested in shopping from home, check out our online boat show, where we offer some great specials. Follow the link below to shop:

https://www.thegpsstore.com/Specials-Hot-Deals/Boat-Show-Sale

The United States Sailboat Show ended yesterday and our show team is back. The show had a great turn out attracting a huge crowd of boat enthusiasts. It was so nice to be back at the show again after the show was cancelled last year. We helped attendees put together some awesome marine packages. We also had the chance to speak with customers in person and to catch up with industry reps and old friends. Thank you to everyone with the United States Sailboat Show for putting on such a top-notch event.

The Fort. Lauderdale show is up next and runs October 27-31^st. Purchase tickets  now through the link below.

https://www.flibs.com/en/attend/tickets.html

Inventory continues to be a challenge with global supply chain issues and component shortages. We are doing our very best to keep our customers informed of changes and are working closely with manufacturers to navigate these unique challenges and to replenish inventory. Our team is frequently updating the expected dates for backordered items on our website in an effort to provide the most accurate information available to us. We are grateful for our customers and their patience and understanding in this unique time.  With these extended backorders in mind, now may be a good time to review your electronics and prepare earlier than usual for upcoming projects or electronics needs.

Happy Tuesday! It’s a busy day here at The GPS Store. We are preparing for the United States Sailboat Show that starts on Thursday and runs through Monday. Visit us at the show for great deals on electronics, or visit us online for our virtual boat show sale.

We look forward to spending some time with our customers in person. It’s something that we don’t always get the chance to do and have missed over the last year. If you love electronics like we do, you are guaranteed to enjoy the show.

This time of year is full of planning- preparing for shows, upcoming holiday sales and looking forward to end of the year events. It’s also a good time to take inventory of your existing electronics and any software updates that haven’t been performed. Software updates are periodically released from manufacturers and are free of charge. Oftentimes they provide improvements to past features, backwards compatibility with new accessories and access to new, innovative features. It is strongly encouraged software be updated regularly to ensure you get the best performance out of your device.

Furuno recently released their 8.01 Software Update for TZTouch2 12/15 displays. The V8.01 Furuno software update includes ‘Fish-It’, ‘Drift-It’ and ‘New Marker Zoom’ features. Click the link below for update information including a list of new and improved upon features. If you have electronics from another manufacturer, take a moment to check their website for information about your unit and potential software updates.

https://furunousa.com/-/media/sites/furuno/software_library/software/software/overview_of_changes_to_tzt2_12_and_15_with_v8_01_software.pdf

We will check back in over the next few days with pictures and information from the show. You can find us at booth B40- and we may even have a little souvenir for you at our booth if you mention this blog post.

See you at the show!

Hi everyone, We’re back! We’ve taken some time away from the blog to make some system updates and are ready to connect.

We can’t believe it’s already October. The occasional crisp, cool morning is starting to make its way to us here in North Carolina and is a welcomed relief from the hot summer that we had.

The watercooler is buzzing with excitement…Boat show season kicks off with the Annapolis Sail Show next week, followed by the Ft. Lauderdale show. The Sail Show is located in downtown historic Annapolis which serves as a beautiful backdrop to the festivities. These shows provide a great opportunity to see what’s new in the marine electronics world and have a chance to make side-by-side comparisons of various electronics. We look forward to catching up with customers- many of whom we get to see at the show every year!

We want to see you. Boat Show season is here! Here’s a quick glance at some noteworthy dates-

 Tent B 40, Oct. 14-18

 Oct. 27-31

Jan. 26-30

Feb. 16-20

  March 2-6

Certainly is difficult to believe it is the end of October.  Weather is still warm and golf has been great in our area.  Don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend to gain an hour of sleep but lose an hour of daylight.  We are starting to receive our Christmas inventory so stay tuned for what we are offering as specials and they will be big one .  Plenty to appeal to all GPS users whether, auto, marine or outdoors we will have something for everyone.   Have a great weekend and enjoy the weather while it lasts.  don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and Twitter for more information.

It is the first day of the Annapolis Sail Boat Show and we have our guys in Tent B40.  If you are looking for some help selecting marine electronics please make sure to check us out.  We have great deals, with the best advice you can get.  Brian and Scott really know their business when it comes to marine electronics both are NMEA 2000 certified as well as certified marine installers so questions can be answered.  We also have great relations with our manufacturing partners so if you have older systems we can get you answers if we don’t know on the spot.  Check us out in Tent B40, also at the store and on Facebook and Twitter.

Annapolis Sail Show starts and runs through Monday of the following week 10/14.  We will be in Booth B40, at the Show. Last week Garmin came a calling with a new 35′ Contender and three 300 hp Yamahas and of course all the latest Garmin electronics.  We all had an opportunity to cruise the Intercoastal Waterway and see how everything worked.  The help used twin GPSMAP 8617 and the sounder was a GSD 25 with CHIRP transducer.  Radar was a Phantom 24, with Sirius weather and Fusion entertainment, and of course a reactor 40 Autopilot, Quite the package. but to know the truth there wasn’t a person who works here that could not have specked out what was needed to install and operate it.  Just great the a company like Garmin thinks enough of our store to offer this opportunity.  Thanks again to Brandon and David for giving us the opportunity to see your stuff in action.  Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more.