Well, after 10 years of faithful service, my Garmin 276C just packed it in. Apparently it no longer knows that it has to look for satellites. I've exhausted attempts to find a simple fix and to have it repaired by Garmin would be an expensive ordeal as they have a base charge of $250.00 just to look at it, plus the repair, parts, shipping, etc, etc, etc.
As a result, I'm now in the market for a new unit
and I'm banking on the wealth of knowledge and experience that lurks here.
It need not be a marine/auto dual use unit as the 276C was and monitoring of engine systems is not necessary. The 298 helm is not a GPS friendly space and any unit I buy will either have to be surface mounted on a bracket dead center in front of the gauges or flush mounted (no larger that about 5 x 5 inches) to the right of the gauges. Thats it for available space.
I should add that I'd like to keep the cost around or ideally under $1000.00 USD.
Any thoughts/recommendations are greatly appreciated... good or bad.