Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be cool!

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 20:40:26 +0100, "Ric" tempted fate
with:

Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be cool!

It would, but I know of no such animal. Question, do you really need
a chartplotter? Since you specify that you have a PC, have you
considered attaching a cheap handheld to it and using something like
OziExplorer? It supports many different chart formats and can
calibrate a scanned chart or even a satellite photo for use. You can
print your charts out, too. If the PC craps out enroute, replacement
parts or a complete replacement may be easier to find than for a
chartplotter. Adapters are available to read some of the different
media with a PC, as well, but I've never tried them. I'm not saying
it's the best solution for everyone, but your stated needs seem to
lean that way. As for me, they can sell me a chartplotter when they
make one that reads my MapTech CDs.

Anyway, Garmins seem to me to have the most extensive support in the
freeware community, for some reason, but I don't really know what you
want to do to your chartplotter with your pc.


__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

Anyway, Garmins seem to me to have the most extensive support in the
freeware community, for some reason, but I don't really know what you
want to do to your chartplotter with your pc.

I'm not entirely sure either. Up to now, I have only used my Raymarine
chartplotter on board (with a Psion PDA which can backup and transfer
waypoints), and this only for nav around the Mediterranean.

This system will be too expensive to go further afield, as the Raymarine
charts are hugely expensive. I am therefore looking for a more versatile
system which can use swapped and downloaded electronic charts from lots of
different sources.

Ozie-explorer on a laptop may be a good possibility. However, it works on
Windoze which is notoriously unreliable, slow, energy-greedy and crashprone,
which is a downer. I'd ideally like a separate chartplotter which consumes
less electricity and is more reliable, but which connects to a PC allowing
me to squirt charts over to it. Also, I could then put the chartplotter by
the wheel and keep the laptop indoors on the nav-table. That's the way I'm
thinking at the moment, though input welcome.

I'd agree from what I have researched so far that Garmins seem to be the way
to go for the moment.

Anyway, Garmins seem to me to have the most extensive support in the
freeware community, for some reason, but I don't really know what you
want to do to your chartplotter with your pc.

It just occured to me that most of the freeware I've seen is also
targeted at handhelds. I have no idea whether it will work with the
more expensive units.

It also occurs that you need to understand the different kinds of
connections. There is plain NMEA, used for getting position data from
the GPS to another instrument or the PC. For uploading and
downloading waypoints, routes, and tracks, you use a proprietary
format. A lot of the freeware is targeted at this proprietary
traffic.

Then there is the problem of attaching the GPS to the PC. I expect
that the chartplotter you select will not have a serial connector for
going straight to a PC, though many handhelds do. You will likely
want to buy an interface to convert the NMEA traffic to something the
PCs serial port will like. If you have more than one instrument to
hook up, you may want to invest in a multiplexor. At this point, I
have to confess to being unsure whether multiplexors handle the
proprietary protocol for waypoint upload, etc.



__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

Let me ask the more fundamental question -- why do you want a chart
plotter?
"Budget", "round the world", and "chartplotter" don't go in the same
thought for me.

If you assume you need paper charts for backup, then having a
chartplotter means you need to buy the data twice, once on paper and
once on CD (or whatever). It took us about 350 charts to do our
circumnav. Doubling the bill for these is thousands of dollars. I'd
rather spend the money elsewhere.

Second thought. Many of the charts you will use were surveyed in the
good old days (a new 1995 DMA/NIMA chart has a survey by James Cook in
1783 -- the oldest I've found) and the datums are off. Often this is
a constant error for the whole area (usually, but not always
longitude). If you take some radar or visual bearings as you near an
island, you can establish the actual position of landmarks and figure
out how much to move the lat/lon lines to match reality. This is easy
on paper, but I don't know a chart plotter that will do it. Of course,
doing this does not give you an accurate chart that you mindlessly
trust, but it is convenient.

Third thought. In the progess of your trip, you will change your
plans, perhaps often. It's easy to get paper charts of an area on the
spot, but matching electronic charts can't be found in the boondocks
(we had an 8.5x14 HP flatbed scanner on the boat -- only 3x11x16" --
so we could make limited copies).

Fourth thought. As you go along, you will find that the best charts
of an area are from the chart agency of the nation you're in. For
French Polynesia, you want SHOM charts, which are now available from a
USA dealer. They're far better than the USA or BA coverage. Maybe you
can get SHOM charts for your plotter. Also, probably, New Zealand and
Australia. But Fiji, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey? I don't think so.

Fifth thought. Sailing all the time in new, poorly charted, waters is
demanding on the navigator. I like very much the discipline of taking
out the paper chart, laying out waypoints in sensible places and
drawing in the course lines. It gives you the chance to really look
to see where you're planning to go, and how near to dangers. Then I
measure each leg, distance and bearing, and mark it on the chart.
Then, when I enter the waypoints in the GPS, the range and bearing in
the GPS had better match the distance and bearing on the paper chart
-- if not, I've made an error. (BTW, many BA charts make this much
easier than any USA charts -- they have a lat/lon scale down the
middle, with decimal minutes, while our large scale charts still use
minutes and seconds).

A chart plotter does all this for you, but you lose the close look at
the whole chart and the whole course line. And, don't forget, the
chart plotter thinks the chart is accurate. You know better, and
sometimes the error is miles.

So, while we certainly will have a chart plotter aboard Fintry, and
will use it in "home" waters -- at least the East Coast of the USA --
when we go off again to strange and wonderful places, it will paper,
and only paper, even though Fintry's budget is, I guess, somewhat
larger than yours.

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com



"Ric" wrote in message ...
Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be cool!

You can get the NOAA ENC files for free, as well as a viewer. See:
http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/
Don't know if they'll do what you want, but the price is right.

"Ric" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is
one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use
indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be cool!

"Keith" wrote in message
...
You can get the NOAA ENC files for free, as well as a viewer. See:
http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/
Don't know if they'll do what you want, but the price is right.

"Ric" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this
suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is
one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I
would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from
the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use
indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be
cool!


Don't think the US coastline is exactly what he had in mind.

--
Remove "nospam" from return address.

Hi Ric,

If not sure and maybe pc, I would have a gander at NavPak Pro (also a
pocket version for the CE o/s but I'm not too knowledgeable on the
latter one) www.globenav.com
http://www.globenav.com/

Programs are written by a circumnavigator (who better) and for not
much more than others has a load more bells & whistles that you'll end
up needing out there handles sextant sights, planet star finder, scan
own, C-Map, raster, etc. Users have an excellent user group and tech
support backup.

Join the user group as there's sometimes discussions on those farflung
places you'll be soon heading to.

Best regards
Gerlad

"Glen Wiley Wilson" wrote in message . ..

Anyway, Garmins seem to me to have the most extensive support in the
freeware community, for some reason, but I don't really know what you
want to do to your chartplotter with your pc.

It just occured to me that most of the freeware I've seen is also
targeted at handhelds. I have no idea whether it will work with the
more expensive units.

It also occurs that you need to understand the different kinds of
connections. There is plain NMEA, used for getting position data from
the GPS to another instrument or the PC. For uploading and
downloading waypoints, routes, and tracks, you use a proprietary
format. A lot of the freeware is targeted at this proprietary
traffic.

Then there is the problem of attaching the GPS to the PC. I expect
that the chartplotter you select will not have a serial connector for
going straight to a PC, though many handhelds do. You will likely
want to buy an interface to convert the NMEA traffic to something the
PCs serial port will like. If you have more than one instrument to
hook up, you may want to invest in a multiplexor. At this point, I
have to confess to being unsure whether multiplexors handle the
proprietary protocol for waypoint upload, etc.



__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

Well everyone seems to be trying to talk you into PC software, which
isn't what you asked for. Since I was the first to do it, I guess I
can't cast asparagus. Back to your original question. From a glance
at the catalogs, it looks as if the CMAP media are supported across
the most product lines, but not Garmin. Given your stated concerns,
I'd probably pick a CMAP unit I liked and make sure the freeware
worked with it before buying.

__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

Get an IBM type laptop and "find" a free set of the 2 CD's with the
15000 glogal C-Map vector charts. Chart plotters are toys.


On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 20:40:26 +0100, "Ric" wrote:

Hello,

I am fitting my boat out for a round the world cruise.

Currently I have a raymarine 425 chartplotter. Unfortunately this suffers
from two disadvantages - first it uses proprietary memory chips for the
charts, which means that I would not be able to electronically download
charts from the internet and load them as I need them - and second it is one
of the worst chartplotters for PC connection as Raymarine seem to have
cornered people into buying their own expensive software to connect.

I am therefore after a more user-friendly chartplotter. Basically I would
like to find a chartplotter that firstly takes Compact Flash cards (thus
allowing me to erase and load charts as I move, downloading them from the
internet or sweapping them with other sailors as needed) and which also
allows easy connection to freeware PC programs.

Ideally, is there any chartplotter out there yet which can use indifferently
all the different electronic chart formats out there? That would be cool!