anoccasionalyachtsman
Well-known member
I bought a Garmin 276cx and am finding out that it while its charting in fine, the rest of the software is a bad joke.
https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/539722
Firstly, if I set up a route with the odm as first mark it won't give me a bearing, distance or time to it. All the various selectable data fields can do is tell me where the next mark is from the odm or my present position. I could put the odm in as a 'goto' and that works, but then I need to switch to the route after the start and we're back to the same problem, bearing is to the next mark but one.
More seriously, if I put in a typical 'cans' course, it will usually ignore the route and choose the nearest mark to direct me to, but sometimes it's seemingly random.
Here's an example, wpts around where I live, and 'Winner' (Solent mark) thrown in for a distant point.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMIrrxQCi-EbpIbdm-j8LfCamZEvIcwTUtGAC78
This is the route I've set and activated.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMyoUMm86mFdnZ76YtsS1Vzj5edMI5raPZQpx2W
The magenta line on the chart is correct, but notice how it's decided to tell me the course (to steer) for Winner, when it should be showing Reigate, or as above, at least the CTS from Reigate to Gomshall.
My hunch is that some software which 'should' decide that I need to be within a certain distance from a point before switching to the next is completely missing, and this allows it to just choose any point. Oddly, I put Winner in because the first tests showed that it would just jump to directing to the nearest point, and I certainly didn't expect it to then jump to the farthest, but maybe that's part of the flawed logic?
Anyway. A discussion is being had with Garmin and I expect I'll be getting a refund. The question is what to do instead. Present use is in a keelboat, so waterproofness and portability were the prime reasons for the original choice. I may have to
Having spoken to various of my competitors I find that they're all just using 'goto' - are all systems this terrible?
What I want is to to know where the odm is in prestart, and what the course to the first mark is. I'd also like to be able to tell it not to switch to the next point until I'm within say 50m of the present one. Does any plotter or tablet-based nav software allow this?
ps. Don't ask me what the 'Dist to Point' is supposed to mean. Garmin don't know and it's always 0ft away. Could it be philosophical?
https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/539722
Firstly, if I set up a route with the odm as first mark it won't give me a bearing, distance or time to it. All the various selectable data fields can do is tell me where the next mark is from the odm or my present position. I could put the odm in as a 'goto' and that works, but then I need to switch to the route after the start and we're back to the same problem, bearing is to the next mark but one.
More seriously, if I put in a typical 'cans' course, it will usually ignore the route and choose the nearest mark to direct me to, but sometimes it's seemingly random.
Here's an example, wpts around where I live, and 'Winner' (Solent mark) thrown in for a distant point.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMIrrxQCi-EbpIbdm-j8LfCamZEvIcwTUtGAC78
This is the route I've set and activated.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMyoUMm86mFdnZ76YtsS1Vzj5edMI5raPZQpx2W
The magenta line on the chart is correct, but notice how it's decided to tell me the course (to steer) for Winner, when it should be showing Reigate, or as above, at least the CTS from Reigate to Gomshall.
My hunch is that some software which 'should' decide that I need to be within a certain distance from a point before switching to the next is completely missing, and this allows it to just choose any point. Oddly, I put Winner in because the first tests showed that it would just jump to directing to the nearest point, and I certainly didn't expect it to then jump to the farthest, but maybe that's part of the flawed logic?
Anyway. A discussion is being had with Garmin and I expect I'll be getting a refund. The question is what to do instead. Present use is in a keelboat, so waterproofness and portability were the prime reasons for the original choice. I may have to
Having spoken to various of my competitors I find that they're all just using 'goto' - are all systems this terrible?
What I want is to to know where the odm is in prestart, and what the course to the first mark is. I'd also like to be able to tell it not to switch to the next point until I'm within say 50m of the present one. Does any plotter or tablet-based nav software allow this?
ps. Don't ask me what the 'Dist to Point' is supposed to mean. Garmin don't know and it's always 0ft away. Could it be philosophical?