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I would like to connect my new AIS (Smart Radio SR161) receiver to my mac (running MacENC).

Question1?? The AIS output is 9 pin (4 + 5) serial port. The Keyspan input is 8 pin Mini-D connection. Mac stores/shops no longer offer the 9 pin serial to mini-DIN8 adapters.
Can I just 'solder'-up from a standard 9 pin serial cable, splice in an 8 Pin Mini-DIN? ... and I suppose just leave the ground wire 'float'?

Question2?? Have been using successfully a Keyspan 2 port serial to USB adapter .... Is this going to work with both GPS *and* AIS input?

Hi,
I'm looking at a MacBook and GPSNavX for use offshore on my boat and am concerned about the Mac's resistance to the salt environment. I've heard horror stories relating to (dare I say the word) PCs.
Does anyone have direct experience re the durability of the Macbook in this environment?
I can protect it well from spray and serious vibration.
Thanks.

I have a new Mac Mini with all the speed i think i am going to need. Installed MacENC and then did a little research on multiplexors. The shipmodual that has been recommended is a lot more expensive then the Actisense i purchased. I have used these in the past and have had great success with them. So i get the Furuno data in the the multiplexor and plug in the USB port and i cannot get any data into the MacENC program. The Actisense is recognized by the mini but the data is not coming up in the MacENC program. So i go ahead and download the GPSnavX and try that. Still no joy.

Anyone have some suggestions about what the next step should be. I am not interested in the Shipmodual unit. The Actisense is Mac ready.
thanks

I've been seeing some very slow performance from MacENC for some time, but in the past few days it has reached the point that "no data" alarms are going off when I've selected nav on my autopilot. I do have an 8MB annotation file and hundreds of waypoints (most currently hidden) and I also record a track file on one minute intervals. Could any of these by the culprit?

Most of the alarms are generated when I change the chart scale, but yesterday I was getting alarms as I drove steadily across a small scale chart with no other apparent load on the processor. The alarm will go off two or three times in a few minutes and then there will be no trouble for several hours. Something definitely makes the program churn through some big delays. I've come to expect that scale changes will hang things up for 20-30 seconds (very slow screen redraws) but I haven't seen the no data alarms going off in the past.

Everything does work, just very very slowly.

I am seeking some expertise in recommending the proper setup to connect Raymarine Seatalk devices to MacENC...here is the equipment I have installed on my Beneteau (all vintage about 2003/2004):

ST60 Tridata
Raystar 120 GPS Receiver
ST6001 Smartpilot
Pathfinder Radar

Today, all of this is brought together on an hsb2 Plus Series Color LCD Display, but would like MacENC to capture data realtime, and be able to transfer waypoints back and forth.

I've looked at the Miniplex 41 and 42 (BT preferred), but am not able to really understand what is the proper device to purchase...and what functionality to expect with either. Or, is there a better solution altogether?

Also, any tips/hints on installation/setup would be greatly appreciated. I'm only on my boat 4 or 5 times a summer, and minimizing the time and aggravation of setting something like this up would be a big bonus!

Thanks!

Brian

I'm wondering if anyone else has has a BU-303 or BU-353 GPS unit go bad on them. I used a BU303 heavily last year and started getting all sorts of strange scrambled problems in MacENC. I borrowed a BU353 to get home from Dutch Harbor and the problems disappeared, strongly suggesting a bad GPS unit. This year I have a brand new BU353 and I've had odd problems on several occasions. The first time the electronics showed me ripping around in a large oval across the south Bering sea at 33 knots. Lately I have twice had to disconnect (preferences: disconnect on window close check box) and reconnect after losing any GPS feed. Both times reconnecting the GPS immediately restored normal operation.

I have several more GPS units that I could use, but that little unit is the fastest and lowest power-consuming unit on the boat. I'm starting to wonder it it is worth it to keep buying them if they really have such short life spans, or if there is some odd hidden problem in software or hardware. Has anyone else seen this problem?

Good evening all of you,
I use an ibook G4 800 Mhz, 640 GB for Navigation with GPSNavX and MacEnc in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. I had to replace the hard drive now 3 times. The first time I thought that the reason was the difficulty I had with the Power supply. But after the third time, the ibook broke down, I think now that the hard drive crashes, because the vibrations or even shocks are too hard. We sailed sometimes in rough conditions.
Does anybody have the same experience or have any idea to avoid hard drive crashes in the future? I dont want to use another of my powerbooks or buy a macbook air just for navigation, because otherwise the ibook works fine (surprisingly with Mac OS X 10.5.4
I hope someone can help
Jochen

AyeTides is Mr. Tides for the iPhone. I'm still in the process of getting approved by Apple for the Developer program, but the website is up at http://www.ayetides.com/ so you can see what the app looks like. I wrote the site using iWeb so it's a little funky, sorry about that.

As soon as I get approved by Apple and get a chance to test it on a real iPhone and not just the simulator, I'll be sending it to Apple for the App Store. I'm thinking of pricing it around $14.99.

As for the name, I'm thinking 1/3 will go "huh?", 1/3 will laugh, and 1/3 will groan at the pun

Hi,

I have tried exporting waypoints or routes to GPX files in order to import in Bobcat and then load them on my garmin GPS.

When I try to load them in the latest (2.0.0.7) version of Bobcat, I get :
"FILENAME could not be imported."

I have checked the GPX file, and it looks fine to me.

Does anyone know what it takes to import into Bobcat?
Is there any other simple way?

I would like to avoid buying a serial cable ; or having to go through CSV export/modification/reimport.

thanks a lot.

regards,
thomas

ps: i am using what i think is the latest version of macenc. The download link said 6.0 but I just realized the about box now says 5.98 .

Just downloaded all the latest versions of both programs. But where can I integreate the two? I've been searching the forums but I haven't found anything?? I know you can export the data from Mr Tides but how do you import them into MacENC?

Thanks for your help

Stefan