C-MAP PC Planner

[ianfr]

Hi

Does anyone have the C-MAP pc planner and is it any good? The spec seems kind of limited but maybe I am being super critical.

Any feedback appreciated.

Thanks

Ian

 

[mlines]

I use it and its ok, but not brilliant. Its very expensive for what it is.

They heavily protect their copyright, therefore it only works properly with a valid map card in the USB reader. Therefore you are constantly moving the map card from the Chartplotter to the PC and back. This is also true for the user card for custom tracks etc. You have to move them back and forward on the user card. But people sell old map cards on Ebay, so you can buy cheap map cards just to use in planning mode within the software.

The software is a few years old and has not been updated, it lacks some of the sexy buttons and functions that more recent software has,

I use it more in the "post trip" mode ie. where did I go and how fast.

 

[tom52]

Perfectly usable bit of kit. Some irritating foibles but minor.

Nice to sit in the dining room with loads of space and no pressure to plot all your routes, harbour entrances and plan b options for a complete two week trip, then load them on your plotter via the User Card.

 

[Leighb]

I use it more in the "post trip" mode ie. where did I go and how fast.

I am interested to know how you can see how fast?

I have just transferred a track from our recent trip home from the plotter to PC-Planner.

It shows the track as a continuous line, with no track points and none of the information for each track point that you can see on the plotter.

Have I mised a trick somewhere?

 

[Baggywrinkle]

I use OpenCPN.

Connect the laptop serial port (or USB-serial adapter) to the NMEA0183 port of the plotter and off it all goes.

Maps don't have to be from the same manufacturer as only the co-ordinates, names etc. are transferred, just need a PC Plotter that can do NMEA export of routes/waypoints and a boat plotter with the input and an import function.

See my other posts here:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3618858#post3618858
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3619343#post3619343