Displaying Water Depth on a Garmin Handheld Device

Many Garmin handhelds, such as the GPSMAP 60, 62, 76 and 78 series handheld devices can display water depth. The device needs to be connected to a Sending Device to get any type of depth reading to appear. The handheld device can only receive the water depth information over NMEA 0183, so the device sending the depth information must be NMEA  0183 compatible as well.

NMEA 0183 cables for handheld devices

The handheld device will require a NMEA 0183 accessory cable.

• If the handheld has a 4-pin serial port, the following cable is required: Power/Data Cable.
  
  With this cable, please connect the two devices together as described below:
  
  
  1. Connect the Red (Power) wire of the handheld's cable to the positive side of the power source of the boat.
  2. Connect the Black (Ground) wire of the handheld's cable to the common ground of the boat, usually the negative side of the power source. If the sending device has negative data (-) wires, they will also share a common ground with this wire.
  3. Connect the Brown (Data Out) wire of the handheld's cable to the NMEA Data In (+) wire of the sending device.
  4. Connect the White (Data In) wire of the handheld's cable to the NMEA Data Out (+) wire of the Sending Device.
     
     
• if the handheld only has a USB port, the following cable is required:  Serial Data Power Cable.
  
  With this cable, please connect the two devices together as described below:
  
  
  1. Connect the Red (Power) wire of the handheld's cable to the positive side of the power source of the boat.
  2. Connect the Black (Ground) wire of the handheld's cable to the common ground of the boat, usually the negative side of the power source.
  3. Connect the Yellow (Data Out) wire of the handheld's cable to the NMEA Data In (+) wire of the Sending Device.
  4. Connect the White (Data In) wire of the handheld's cable to the NMEA Data Out (+) wire of the Sending Device.
  5. Connect the Green (Data Ground) wire of the handheld's cable to any NMEA (-) wires from the Sending Device.

Once the connections are complete, set the communication interface on the handheld to NMEA and make sure that the sending device is set to either NMEA Standard or NMEA In/NMEA Out (4800 Baud) depending on what is offered. Please refer to the owner's manual for instruction on changing the communication setting to NMEA.

Once everything has been configured like above, the handheld should be able to display water depth in a data field and will also record the water depth in the active track log.