Furono GP1650 & Navionics charts

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Guise

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We have recently bought a boat with a Furuno GP1650 GPS / plotter, which came with an out of date Navionics chart set for the English channel.

We want to change the chart set to another region (Thames estuary / South coast) and having looked on various websites are completely confused how to go about this, there seem to be ways of upgrading, but mostly the pressure is to just buy a new card and Navionics seem to be pushing their gold / platinum cards which are pretty expensive.

We would appreciate help with two questions:-

- Any suggestions for a low(er) cost way to get the right charts uploaded to the existing card?

- Will the card fit into a standard card reader - it seems to have a slot in the centre and a bit different to any of the ports in the multi-card reader we have.
 
Completely unfamiliar with the kit but a bit of googling suggests:

1) the plotter you have uses Furono's proprietary 'FP' card system and the card is an 8mb FP card. Navionics sold compatible cards under the name 'Navionics Classic NavCard'. Here is a selection on Ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...+classic.TRS0&_nkw=navionics+classic&_sacat=0, all of which have dates 15-20 years ago.

2) The card and the Navionics 'Classic' cartography are both obsolete. Navionics does not now support the format, so you will not be able to update this card. See http://www.navionics.com/en/classic. None of the present Navionics card formats will be compatible with your Furuno plotter either and it is not in their compatibility list any more (http://www.navionics.com/en/compatibility), so Navionics looks like a dead end.

3) An old thread on this forum suggests that there probably is no PC card reader readily available: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?363544-Furuno-GP-3500-FP-Card-reader

However:

4) Jeppersen's C-Map compatibility chart (http://jeppesen.com/documents/marine/light-marine/C-MAP-Chart-Compatibility.pdf) does list the plotter as compatible with their NT+ charts, although my copy at least remarks that the FP 8Mb card is obsolete. However Jeppesen's website still suggests that updates of NT+ cartography for the FP format are available: http://c-map.jeppesen.com/us/marine-navigation/chart-plotters/c-map-max-ntplus

Probably your best bet of getting near(ish) up to date cartography for this plotter is to call Jeppersen or one of their dealers and enquire about getting a new C-Map NT+ FP format card for your area, and importantly how and if updates are supported. Here for instance is a 'new' C-Map NT+ FP card for approximately the area you specify available on Ebay (although it doesn't say what the date of the cartography is, it might be new in packaging but years old). It is perhaps worth giving the seller a call: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/C-Map-NT-...759623?hash=item41a2d54347:g:slsAAMXQL99ScRye

Failing any luck with the Jeppersen route, you would be getting into new plotter territory. It's worth bearing in mind that even if you get this plotter working, the limited space on an 8mb card format is going to mean having to buy and update multiple cards to get wide cruising ground coverage (looking at the specs, each card understandably only covers quite a small area). The last revision of the manual was in 2002 (and the first in 1999), so this plotter has probably given upwards of 15 years' service and even though it's new to you, its lifespan going forward is probably a bit limited. Some might argue (given the above) that it is already essentially obsolete.

Hope this is helpful, perhaps someone more familiar with vintage Furuno will be along in a bit.
 
Agree with bitbaltic. I gave a friend some help last winter with a Furuno C1920 which used Navnet, to try to get AIS displayed. It was absolutely tortuous trying to decipher what was needed, and although on SD card his charts were orphaned as well. Buying the cables and the interface box was a large chunk of the way to a modern plotter- which he now has. The boat also floats 2" higher after uninstalling the Furuno.
 
Bitbaltic, many, many thanks for taking the time to find this out for us. I'll have a word with Jeppersen next week, but taking on board your comments I feel very reluctant to spend out on a chart for an outdated plotter (depending on the price of course), today I did find some UK navionics classic charts in the US, but they wanted $449, which is crazy.

So for now I'll carry on using it as a basic GPS, and maybe see if I can find an old Navionics classic chart. I'm perfectly happy to carry on using paper charts (which I would even with a working chartplotter). Maybe in a year or two it'll get up the to do list to replace it.
 
i am looking for a Navionics Classic chart for the Mediterranean west such as MD 274 XL for my old furuno 1650W.
Thank you.
 
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