Bob F Posted May 14, 2005 Report Share Posted May 14, 2005 Spent a nice hour or so in Greenham-Regis at West Quay Road this morning. Looking at the Standard Horizon and Raymarine Chart plotters. Chris, the manager couldn't have been more helpful and informative, even though he was having a busy morning. Well impressed with his pre-sales service. I liked the joystick and the very bright display on the Standard Horizon, but wasn't that impressed with the C-Map charts. I thought the colour coding for the depth contours was poor. Once you were deeper than 30ft everything was the same colour, making it harder to determine the depth contours. Try as we may, we couldn't find a way of adjusting the colours (unlike other plotters). They Raymarine C70 was a very nice piece of kit, but you have to go up in price quite a bit. It uses the Navionics Gold charts which had much better colour definition on the depth contours. But when you pan across the display the chart page goes white (except for a rough outline of the land), which made small panning a bit of a pain. Also, Navionics do not yet have a software package that you can use on a PC, so you can't load up way points, etc on a User Card and then plug it into the plotter. Charlie, Duncan I think you have Lowrance plotters. They use Navionics, have you been able to create waypoints, etc at home on your PC, and then save them on a user card. I also remember Duncan producing plots off the Fish Finder. Looks like I will give the Garmin plotters a good look again. I'm out with Adam tomorrow, so I'll be playing with his charts for a while. Whilst I was in the shop a guy came in to look at the ICOM 421 DSC VHF. Chris is selling these for Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
great white Posted May 14, 2005 Report Share Posted May 14, 2005 Hi Bob I have a Lowrance poltter that uses Navionics gold and am very pleased with it In fact the prices have come down on my model [5000c] since I bought it and there is a new smaller cheaper model available. I can use the PC to load and save from the user card using the mapcreate 6 software that came with the plotter, but there is no detail on the background map. It would be nice to be able to load the detail from navionics into it but it does not accept that. I emailed Lowrance who have no intention of improving the detail on maps this side of the pond. In USA the details on mapcreate are very good, over here no detail just sea and land. It does however mean that info on the card can be backed up on my PC, and its easy to sit in the study adding waypoints, marks etc if and when new ones become available. Then just pop the card back in and motor out to look for the new mark. If you want to have a look you are welcome to pop over CU afloat tomorrow, tight lines Charlie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2005 Cheers Charlie. I will have to arrange a demo with you (e.g. another excuse for a trip out on Great White). I quite like the Lowrance Plotter and Fisher Finder. I heard today that the PC Planner NT, which is the PC card reader used for C-MAP cartography, will be bringing out a Card Reader that will be able to read Navionics Gold charts, so in the near future you should be able to get full details charts on your PC. BF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coddy Posted May 14, 2005 Report Share Posted May 14, 2005 Hi Bob As you may be aware I use C-Map and I have a PC NT Planner. I am more than happy with the colours on the PC, my plotter is Grayscale so I don't notice the differance. It provides the depth lines which I prefer to colours which if you are colour blind don't help! You are more than welcome to come over to have a look if you want to compare. Coddy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan Posted May 14, 2005 Report Share Posted May 14, 2005 Bob I agree about the lack of ability to show position info back from the radio direct to the plotter. However as you get it showing on the screen you can always plot it as a waypoint. If you have sent a position request to another club memeber you will probably want to plot it anyway! The Navionics Gold cartridges seem very 'protected' they work in the unit but you can't back them up.......or seemingly view them easily. There are suggestions that you can share them on some PC packages but I haven't tried for a couple of years. I can create and edit waypoints etc using cs files but frankly I am either marking where I am at the time or pointing on the chart to somewhere I like the look of going to....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 17, 2005 Cheers Coddy. I'm gunna have to take up your offer some time. Duncan, interesting comment about the position requests. I guess it is easy enough to plot the position in manually as a way point. That may have sold me on the ICOM421 and saved me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 I have seen a couple of 7200 units installed recently and no one has a bad word against them. numeric keypad for entering numbers seems a good idea but I reckoned I am not going to be 'dialing' new numbers at sea, only using ones I already have programmed. Still a little concerned that I only have 100 memory slots - PBSBAC group should take half of those shortly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Pardon..? Totally lost and baffled [Dinasaur] reader.....jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 18, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Duncan, I think the number of memory locations that the radio has for storing MMSI numbers is going to be the big clincher for me. The ICOM 421 has 100. The Navman and Raymarine 54E only have 20!! Like you say, PBSBAC already have ~70 boats, so 20 memory locations will not be enough (once everyone has moved to DSC). BF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
great white Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Hi all Bob you are welcome on the boat, it must be about time we had another go one evening. But I thought you were interested in the Mapcreate to use the PC to edit info on teh card, which needs a visit to home. If your system works better than mine Coddy I would be interested in having a look, and as we are still almost neighbours perhaps we can combine both for Bob at some time. You are right Duncan, initally putting info on the cards is done at the PC, but my marks tend to be things seen afloat and entered as waypoints or events, not numberers gleaned from other sources. A numerick pad is good for entering info, but not as easy as creating a waypoint from the boats current position. Charlie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newboy Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Bob, there's no need for you to buy the 7200, all you have to do is catch the 3rd largest bass for the Navman bass comp in BFM......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 18, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Charlie, sounds great. As soon as I can get some of this work off my back I will give you a call. Kam, yes, bloody marvelous isn't it?!! Two of the things I've been looking to buy are in this months BFM comps. The Lowrance combo and the 7200. Knowing my luck I'll go out and buy them and them win the comp!!! Second thoughts...those sort of things don't happen to me. BF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coddy Posted May 20, 2005 Report Share Posted May 20, 2005 Hi Bob amd Charlie Welcome around anytime. Just bought the Navman 7100 DSC so I will have to spend some time fitting it soon Coddy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newboy Posted May 20, 2005 Report Share Posted May 20, 2005 Coddy, you have more or less the same set up as me, mine are the 7100 and 5600. Will try to get the two to talk to each other plus fit the fuel meter soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 20, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 20, 2005 I bought the Icom 421 from Green Regis today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam F Posted May 21, 2005 Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 Wooah!!! Steady on Bob!....I bet spending all that made you have to sit down for a bit! Bout time - I think you should take the old unit to the antiques roadshow!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob F Posted May 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 I'm just about getting over that queezy feeling. The old one finally gave up and would not transmit, so she'll be consigned to the recycle bin. BF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newboy Posted May 21, 2005 Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 I'm just about getting over that queezy feeling. The old one finally gave up and would not transmit, so she'll be consigned to the recycle bin. BF Bunk it on Ebay, you might get a fiver for it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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