Binman
Well-Known Member
Hi, there is a chart plotter mentioned from www.meridian-chartware.co.uk has any one got it and what is it like.
Chart plotter in Yachting Monthly
- Thread starter Binman
- Start date
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Is it the Imray based one. If so and you are used to using Imray paper charts it is worth considering. I have used it for the last 5 years or so on a basic PC.
Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Burnham Bob
Well-Known Member
I've got the PC based version - it's excellent. You can install it on the home PC for passage planning and on a laptop for use on the boat. However, this is the tablet based version which you can use in the cockpit. If it's as good as the PC version it's great - even has tides to help passage planning but I'm not sure of the tablet version.
DJE
Well-Known Member
I've used it a bit. Very reasonably priced and great to have all the latest Admiralty and SHOM charts. But my old laptop struggled to handle the big raster images and often crashed.
I was trying out Opencpn at the same time and I was particularly keen to have an AIS display. And for ease of use, reliability, and particularly for AIS - Opencpn knocks it into a cocked hat.
I was trying out Opencpn at the same time and I was particularly keen to have an AIS display. And for ease of use, reliability, and particularly for AIS - Opencpn knocks it into a cocked hat.
Binman
Well-Known Member
Looks to be Raster charts
VicMallows
Well-Known Member
I have the Imray PC chart-plotter from many years ago. Its one big disadvantage was that the AIS capability did not include CPA and TCPA. Are these available in the current offering?
bitbaltic
Well-Known Member
If by 'the Imray pc chart plotter' and suchlike everybody means Meridian's SeaTrak, then yes, the latest version, or at least the one I have (1.12.0.16) does include CPA time and distance. Works very well for me with a Digital yacht USB AIS box.
Meridian do supply their chart packages with both SeaTrak and the old RYA training plotter program though so it might depend on what you have installed.
No idea about the functionality of the tablet version though.
Cheers
vyv_cox
Well-Known Member
Yes, that's what Tom Cunliffe's piece in the May YM says. He considers that to be one of its principal advantages.
DJE
Well-Known Member
TC was singing its praises at a recent Sadler Association meeting too.
Binman
Well-Known Member
What does TCPA stand for?
DJE
Well-Known Member
Time to closest point of approach. (or time of closest point of approach)
JVL
Well-Known Member
Look at London chartplotters cheaper better and the bloke knows what he is taking about. No connection other than a being a happy customer.
John
John
Binman
Well-Known Member
Than you
DJE
Well-Known Member
OpenCPN and real charts. Now that must be the solution. Thanks for the tip.
JVL
Well-Known Member
Excellent kit that works I have one of their toughbook setups it's bombproof super accurate and does what it says on the tin complete world folio including visit my harbour ais and various other bells and whistles
John
MoodySabre
Well-Known Member
I had the Meridian plotter. I later bought a AIS USB dongle and could not get it to work despite conversation with the suppliers of both. I swapped to a Belfield plotter (who also sell the USB thing) and bingo! AIS worked fine and it is very easy to use generally.
snooks
Well-Known Member
Pssst....You might want to wait four weeks for the June issue of YM before buying any tablet nav apps ;0)
Binman
Well-Known Member
Sounds like a good idea, it's a mag I have delivered.
SimonFa
Well-Known Member
Even for new laptops handling raster images is very heavy work. Ideally you should strip out all programmes other than the one that handles the images but if you don't want to do that you can at least release some processing power by -
Get your programmes running then
CTRL+Alt+Delete
Task manager
Task manager
In the process window select and close everything you don't need. This may take a bit of fiddling around as you might stop something relevant.
You might also want to look at some of the services as well.
Also if you are disconnected from the web, and its worth doing, you can shut down your anti-virus software.
I do all this on my 6 year old laptop and and makes a big difference running OpenCPN with VistitMyHarbour charts.
You should also see how much free disc space you have, if its on the low side, less that around 30%, I'd free up some as there is a lot of swapping backwards and forwards with rasters and they use disc space, especially if you don't have much RAM.
Its a bit of an investment but I was surprised at the improvement I got when I installed a solid state disc. It was easy to do and as I don't want to buy a new laptop it was worth the investment. They also save a fair bit of battery life, although I haven't measured that and they are also quieter, no whizzing disc to irritate and are really quick to boot up so have benefits in normal usage.
For SSDs I found this website useful (I have no affiliation just found it the best site for research and purchase): http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ssd?gc...-null&ef_id=UmyrAwAAANOQr53Q:20150403094338:s
Don't forget to reboot before connecting to the web at the end of the passage :encouragement: