Charts for Garmin car gps

[pugwash60]

Morning all,
Just back from 10 days up the West Coast.
I recently bought a Garmin Gps and it struck me that it has all that it needs, apart from the mapping, to work well on the boat, albeit down below, does anybody know if it's possible to stick charting on it?
Model is nuvi 265 wt.

 

[wizard]

I would have thought an email to Garmin support if you have registered your GPS would bring a quick and knowledgeable reply.

 

[TrueBlue]

This is not -

precisely what you want, but
Memory Map (clicky here) do marine maps, and I understand at a very reasonable price.

On the compatible with banner, there's an icon labelled "GPSNavX" - dunno if that's compatible with Garmin; probably not.

As suggested contact Garmin, they are very helpful.

Otherwise the stuff runs on a PC; can your SatNav connect to a PC and act as GPS?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

precisely what you want, but
Memory Map (clicky here) do marine maps, and I understand at a very reasonable price.

On the compatible with banner, there's an icon labelled "GPSNavX" - dunno if that's compatible with Garmin; probably not.

As suggested contact Garmin, they are very helpful.

Otherwise the stuff runs on a PC; can your SatNav connect to a PC and act as GPS?

Garmin use a proprietary format for their maps; there are shareware (not free) packages for creating your own maps - see cGPSMapper. However, car units are likely to lack the capability of downloading maps - most DIY ways of getting maps into Garmin units depend on the unit interfacing with MapSource, Garmin's free map management tool. There is no guarantee that the car units use the same format as the units that interface with mapSource.

Finally, Garmin maps are sort of vector based; you basically can't get raster (i.e. scanned) maps into them at all.

Basically, if Garmin don't support loading their BlueChart charts into the unit, then I would say that for an amateur it is not a viable proposition. I do it for use in Antarctica - but only because there is no alternative!

 

[Egbod]

The March 2009 PBO reviewed hand held chartplotters and they tested the Garmin Nuvi 550- a mid range in-car navigator. It was using a standard Garmin Bluechart. It seemed to work well but it didn't show soundings or drying heights just contours. Buoys didn't display their light sequences. The conclusion was that it was acceptable / fine as a back up unit.
I have no idea how well your unit would work.

 

[AllanG]

Morning all,
Just back from 10 days up the West Coast.
I recently bought a Garmin Gps and it struck me that it has all that it needs, apart from the mapping, to work well on the boat, albeit down below, does anybody know if it's possible to stick charting on it?
Model is nuvi 265 wt.

I have the Nuvi 765 WT, which is very similar to your 265, and I wanted to do the same as you, however, Gramin technical department informed me these units cannot be uploaded with marine charts.

Cheers, Allan