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I've been thinking about charts...

With the acquisition of Softchart by Maptech, and the apparent reduction of chart availability (particularly non-US), I'm wondering where GPSNavX and MacENC may be going over the next year. For US coastal waters this doesn't appear a problem with NOAA making the BSB's available. Ditto for MacENC. However, for those of us with further horizons in mind, neither the BSB's or currently available ENCs provide adequate coverage. ENC's seem to be quickly filling in the more detailed, smaller scale charts, but there are still fewer broad scale 'oceanic' charts for major passage making. Both have some detailed coverage of some areas (notable North America and Europe), but there are vast areas which neither provide much coverage, such as Asia, Indian Ocean, Africa, Most of South America, and vast expanses of the Pacific.

I'm struggling with this while planning on going to the South Pacific next year or so. Right now it appears I would need GPSNavX and MacENC, plus PassagePlus (to avail myself to the large offering of ARCS charts). Not an ideal situation. I'd rather have a single solution, preferably MacENC.

Hence, part of my question is do you anticipate expanding compatability with other types of charts? I realize that C-Map's are out of your control, as probably are Navionics. Are there other sources of international BSB charts that will work with GPSNavX and/or MacENC?

Mostly, I'm annoyed at Maptech...and frustrated at the big gaps in ENC coverage.

Scot

I love the GRIB functions in MacEnc, but was wondering if any thought had been put into allowing use of the GRIB wave files? It would be nice to see significant wave height and period along with those arrows. The files are available from NOAA and I know some other programs for other platforms make use of them. Any chance there will be an upgrade in the future?

Jason

How can I use the BSB raster charts from NOAA? The only way I can read them now is using Graphic Converter, which is a great program, but I would like to use MACENC or something like it to do voyage palanning.

Anybody know where I can get ENC for Mexico and further south? I plan on sailing down this Fall.

Pat

Actually 2 questions...

First, I purchased a Garmin 10 Bluetooth GPS receiver in the hopes that I could use My Powerbook G4 AND my Palm Treo700p with the same receiver. No problems on the Mac side...(OUTSTANDING program and development, BTW!!!) The "Que" software is almost useless on the Palm, however, working exactly 3.67% of the time...':roll:' Crashes, freezes, dropped BT connections, unable to connect, etc.... Finally killed the whole device requiring a hard reset.... Anyone else have similar problems and have any solutions/alternatives?

Second, and more appropriate for this discussion. GPSNavX does beautifully with Marine charts, but how about options for mapping to us land-locked folks? I really can't find great importable terrestrial maps. It just grabs my receiver and puts my little happy little triangle right in the giant blank space between Maine and the Pacific. Garmin's maps don't seem to be an option....

http://www.nauticalcharts.gov/viewer/

Pick your region and go.

so are navionics charts ENC charts? And if they are and i have bought a ton of them for a trip to New Zealand from the Caribbean, then can i also read them on my mac and share them with my raymarine chartplotter. Then i could downlaod GRIB files to more accurate charts than the single World Charts...and then of course the world would be a perfect place, PCs would not exist and all i would have to do is buy MAC ENC!

Why do i think that life cannot be that simple!

I cant seem to find a way to show the coordinates in Lat/Lon of the mouse cursor. Am I missing something?

Dear All

Version 1.1 of PassagePlus is available for download at http://www.windvector.com

The two main new features are: (1) It is now possible to display one or more archived tracks in addition to the current track. Tracks can be given individual colours to make it easier to distinguish one from another! (2) Logs and archived logs can now be exported as comma-separated values (CSV) files. This allows the data to be imported into spreadsheet or database applications or Google Spreadsheets, and there you can edit and format the logs to your heart's content and print them out.

A number of more minor improvements have also been made and several bugs fixed. Specifics are in the Version History file.

I continue to work on a long list of other potential improvements. In the meantime, constructive feedback is welcome, as always.

Regards
Jon

I have been sailing 3 weeks through the lesser Antillees this May. We sailed races during the Antigua Sailing week (Bareboat on a chartered 50´Oceanis). GPSNavX is really an outstanding program and I am happy that I bought it early this year. It was great during the regattas and while sailing in the nights.
GPSNavX is installed on an ibook G4. Unfortunatelly the hard disk broke down after 2 weeks. I fear that the temperatures have been to high (during the day up to 95 F outside temperature and I think up to 100 or 115 F in the boat)) .

Furthermore I had problems with the electric power system that stopped working. The voltage of the main batteries may have been to low. I use a 12 Volt car adapter for ibooks. It did not work well. That means, sometimes it loaded the ibook, sometimes not. I could not find out why.

I want to know, how others solve the technical problems with the power. What do you use for it? what is the best solution?
Does anybody have an idea?

Jochen