I have installed a Garmin 168 chartplotter/sounder. The unit has 2.5 MB of
internal chart storage memory. My question is: How much coverage area of
NOAA navigation chart data, from the BlueChart CD-ROM, can be stored at one
time? My area of interest is San Francisco Bay, Suisun Bay, and the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. It takes somewhere around 20 to 25 paper
charts to cover this area. To plan a route of say, 30 miles, from Benecia
to Alameda, would the Garmin 168 be able to hold the required coverage area
with a single download, or would this route require repeated downloads to
map the whole area? Having to do several downloads during the trip would
not be practical, since I don't have a portable computer.
I notice that the more expensive Garmin units use plug-in memory chips with
capacities of as much as 128 MB, and my concern is that the 2.5 MB of memory
in my 168 seems awfully small compared to the 128 MB chip.

I have a 162 with about the same memory. It's more than
enough for me. Here's the charts I think you want. This is
everything from the Golden Gate to up north of Sacto. Total
is 1.95MB.

US18645-A (100000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 89 KB
US18650-A (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 148 KB
US18651-A (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 134 KB
US18653 (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 165 KB
US18656 (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 216 KB
US18657 (10000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 75 KB
US18658 (10000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 99 KB
US18659 (10000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 139 KB
US18661-A (80000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 38 KB
US18661-B (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 217 KB
US18662-A (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 98 KB
US18664-A (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 26 KB
US18664-B (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 19 KB
US18664-C (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 10 KB
US18664-D (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 10 KB
US18680 (210668) Americas BlueChart v4.00 117 KB
US18654-A (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 138 KB
US18655-A (10000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 54 KB
US18654-B (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 8 KB
US18663 (20000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 93 KB
US18649 (40000) Americas BlueChart v4.00 47 KB


--
Chuck Tribolet

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet

Silicon Valley: STILL the best day job in the world.


"Larry Charlot" wrote in message ...
I have installed a Garmin 168 chartplotter/sounder. The unit has 2.5 MB of
internal chart storage memory. My question is: How much coverage area of
NOAA navigation chart data, from the BlueChart CD-ROM, can be stored at one
time? My area of interest is San Francisco Bay, Suisun Bay, and the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. It takes somewhere around 20 to 25 paper
charts to cover this area. To plan a route of say, 30 miles, from Benecia
to Alameda, would the Garmin 168 be able to hold the required coverage area
with a single download, or would this route require repeated downloads to
map the whole area? Having to do several downloads during the trip would
not be practical, since I don't have a portable computer.
I notice that the more expensive Garmin units use plug-in memory chips with
capacities of as much as 128 MB, and my concern is that the 2.5 MB of memory
in my 168 seems awfully small compared to the 128 MB chip.

I have 48 charts covering most of Lake Michigan loaded into mine. 2.05
megabytes

"Larry Charlot" wrote in message
...
I have installed a Garmin 168 chartplotter/sounder. The unit has 2.5 MB
of
internal chart storage memory. My question is: How much coverage area of
NOAA navigation chart data, from the BlueChart CD-ROM, can be stored at
one
time? My area of interest is San Francisco Bay, Suisun Bay, and the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. It takes somewhere around 20 to 25
paper
charts to cover this area. To plan a route of say, 30 miles, from Benecia
to Alameda, would the Garmin 168 be able to hold the required coverage
area
with a single download, or would this route require repeated downloads to
map the whole area? Having to do several downloads during the trip would
not be practical, since I don't have a portable computer.
I notice that the more expensive Garmin units use plug-in memory chips
with
capacities of as much as 128 MB, and my concern is that the 2.5 MB of
memory
in my 168 seems awfully small compared to the 128 MB chip.