MacSailing.net

It would be a great help to those of us who use MacENC and have RayMarine electronics on board to have a way to convert ".gpx" to "archive.fsh" in one step.
I moved over to Mac last year but still have my Vaio computer on which I can install Ray Tech Planner. After I do that I can import a .gpx file from MacENC (using GPSBabel to convert ".gpx" into ".rwf" which is what the Ray Tech Planner needs) and then the Ray Tech Planner program will export it as an "archive.fsh" (onto a CF card) which is what is needed to import into the RayMarine E-Series.
Needless to say, these multiple steps can become tiring!

Not that it is much better but there is another conversion path:-

RayMarine has a PC Utility (.exe) that will convert an Excel document into archive.fsh. You could run this utility in BootCamp, VM!, etc. on the Mac.

As far as I can tell, archive.fsh is RayMarine's proprietary binary format which locks it up.

Thank you. It would be nice if RayMarine would allow MacENC to do the conversion in the MacENC program. Perhaps they'll, eventually, see the benefit of that!

What would be better is if these chart plotter manufacturers would come on board with directly supporting the open standard GPX and KML formats.

Hi Jade,

Could you post the Raymarine Ultility here... it's not part of Raytech version 6.1 and .2

Thanks,

Jim

Hi Jim,

It is dated (retired). But it reportedly works with the E series. I have no further information than the following from the Raymarine site:

PCWaypoint Utility.zip Download

PCWaypoint Utility Manual (pdf)

You can download RayTech RNS v6.2 here:

http://www.raymarine.com/ProductDetail.a...ODUCT=4263

The following is from their website concerning the download of the program:
"Contains the complete RayTech RNS 6.2 and RayTech Planner Applications. A valid license key is required to unlock RayTech RNS 6.2 features, otherwise functionality is limited to RayTech Planner only."

This means that the conversion to "archive.fsh" can be done in that program and it's free.

You'l still have to convert a ".gpx" file to ".rwf" (using GPSBabel) to get your routes and waypoints into the RayTech RNS 6.2

Thanks Jade.

Jim

Is anyone actually using the process described on this thread to put MacENC-generated waypoints and routes into a RayMarine E or C series chart plotter? I want to implement it but would like to know if it's practical and not just possible.

Thanks,
Jackson

What I described in my 3-24-2011 post does work. The only problem is the amount of work you have to put in to get there. I'd still love it if the conversion process could be done inside MacENC