The i-Pilot Track Record feature
Dr. Jason Halfen
Professional Walleye Angler
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Track Record
This afternoon, I took a break from fishing to test the first of i-Pilot's GPS enabled functions: Track Record. The track record function allows i-Pilot to record GPS position data in the form of a set of "track points" while the boat is underway (when powered by the bowmount; a Terrova in this case), and then retrace the track from beginning to end, or from end to beginning, as many times as the user likes.
i-Pilot can record up to three separate tracks, each up to 2 miles in length. When retracing a GPS track, i-Pilot controls the steering of the motor. Speed is not recorded by the Track Record function, only position; speed can be set and adjusted manually, or controlled using the i-Pilot "Cruise Control" function.
The track record functions are controlled by the i-Pilot remote. The first picture is of the remote while I was recording a track (more on that later). The second picture above highlights that portion of the remote control that is used for Track Record. The final picture above shows this region of the remote in more detail. Only a few buttons are needed to use the track record function: the record button (R) in the upper left, the pause button in the upper right, and two arrow buttons in the middle...return to start and return to end, where start (first recorded track point) and end (last recorded track point) refer to the two termini of the recorded track.
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To start recording a track, the user presses the "R" button once. Doing so allows the user to select a memory location for the track (A, B, or C) using the + and - keys that normally control speed. A selection must be made within 3 seconds, otherwise i-Pilot will record the track in whichever memory location is currently displayed on the remote. When a recording is being made, "Rec" is present on the i-Pilot remote's display, as well as the memory location (memory location A, in this case). When I took this picture, I had 4 "bars" of GPS signal strength, my motor power setting was 3.5 (top, center), my GPS speed was 0.8 mph (lower left).
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As I noted above, speed is not recorded by Track Record, only position. Motor speed can be adjusted at any time while the track is being recorded. I clipped along at a fair pace during this trial, and even checked the i-Pilot's speed against that determined by my Humminbird 997. As you can see in the second picture, the speed correlation is perfect.
After recording a track, I wanted to see how accurate i-Pilot would be in playing back the recorded track...or, in other words, how close to the original track I would be when I pressed the "Track to start" or "Track to end" arrow keys. So, I wandered a short distance away from the track, and pressed the "Track to start" arrow key. Under these circumstances, i-Pilot moves directly to the nearest track point, and then follows the recorded track points back to the first point (or the last, if I had pressed the "Track to end" arrow key).
In short, i-Pilot did a great job of returning to the track and then following the track back to its first track point (the start). Once i-Pilot arrived at that point, it turned the motor power off, rather than continuing to drive right through it. What a great feature!
Rather than asking you to just believe me that i-Pilot does a great job at following a recorded track, take a look at the screen capture from my Humminbird 997 shown below (first picture). I took this screen capture after i-Pilot had returned me to the start of the recorded track. Let me decode the screen capture for you (second picture): I began to record the track at the blue arrow. I made a few turns and stopped recording the track at the green arrow. My recorded track is the lower of the two paths in the screen capture. Then, I moved the boat off the track (to the red arrow), and pressed the "Track to start" arrow. Look at what i-Pilot did: it moved back to the nearest recorded track point, then followed the recorded track right back to the first recorded point (just behind the boat icon). i-Pilot's path back to the beginning of the recorded track is the upper path in the screen capture. Not bad!!! Note the distance scale from the screen capture; the deviation from the original recorded path is quite small. It looks like it's under 10 feet for most of the "playback" track...right about the normal GPS position accuracy that I normally see with my Humminbird 997c (7-10 feet).
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Ok, we've recorded a track, we've replayed the recorded track to the beginning....let's have i-Pilot turn us around and replay the track again, from beginning to end.
One press of the "Track to end" arrow key, a speed adjustment with the + or - keys, and we're off. You can see what the i-Pilot remote displays while playing back the recorded track in the first picture; a down-pointing arrow with the word "end" is displayed in the middle of the screen, along with my GPS speed (lower left), GPS signal strength (upper left), motor power setting (7), and the memory location for the recorded track (A).
How did i-Pilot do on this second pass, following the original track from beginning to end? Great, just as it did when playing the track from near the end back to the beginning. My Humminbird 997 screen capture, shown in full and zoomed in below, tells the whole story. I took that screen capture after i-Pilot had turned the motor off upon arriving at the end of the recorded track; note that I'm coasting from the speed I was running while the track was playing (2.0 mph) down to (and through) 0.7 mph now that the motor is turned off.
One use of Track Record and I'm thoroughly impressed. Think about all of the uses for this sort of feature while you fish. Do you like to cast weedbeds? Pull spinners over open water? Follow precise contours of a mudflat while rigging live bait? Cast shorelines? I could go on and on...
Track record is true "set and forget" steering control for your MinnKota bowmount. Set your path with Track Record, and then forget about controlling your boat after that. i-Pilot will take care of the boat control while you focus on setting the hook.
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