GPS and charts

[DryDock]

Does anyone use their car gps on the rivers? I was interested to see if you can get charts to load onto a mobile gps car unit else its very usefull as it is. My gps uses SD cards with maps for roads but I’m sure it’s possible to load more detailed river maps. ThePOI is useful (points of interest files) show locations of facilities nearby like garages and pubs/restaurants, hotels etc.

 

[aquapower]

No, but have a Garmin 76csx which they say you can get road maps for aswell as the bluecharts

 

[PaulGooch]

I have a Garmin Sat Nav, the software doesn't know how to deal with marine charts. If i put a marine chart in the SD slot, it draws the outlines of the chart areas, but no detail.

Garmin have recently launched a unit that will do both though, not sure that it runs both systems simultaneously, or if it's one or the other. The "problem" will be that marine charts tend to only cover the tidal stretches of rivers in the UK.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=148&pID=14893

 

[duncan]

that's one problem Paul - the other is that the 'road' software will move your position onto the nearest road when moving along (as I understand it); not a great feature for navigation

 

[oceanfroggie]

that's one problem Paul - the other is that the 'road' software will move your position onto the nearest road when moving along (as I understand it); not a great feature for navigation

Low cost Garmin Nuvi car sat nav models offer excellent situation awareness for river and canal users. The car charts have the canals and rivers on them. Obviously no marine detail or depth info, but they will tell you where you are.

In relation to the "snap to road" problem when using a car sat nav, simply go into the units system settings menu and change the mode to "off road" or "hiking". This stops car sat nav units positioning the vessel on top of the nearest adjacent road.

Basic Nuvi's are less than £100 and popular with canal and river users who just want good situational awareness and POI database (ie food, shops, pub, hotels, etc).

Nuvi's are not suitable for coastal navigation. The Garmin Gpsmap 620 is essentiallty a portable 5" marine plotter designed to take BlueChart SD cards, but it will also work as a car sat nav using City Navigator maps.

 

[Chris_d]

My Cmap+ chart for the South coast has maps for the river thames all the way up to Oxford, pretty pointless really but gives you something to play with as you sip your beer

 

[PaulGooch]

I've got a Garmin Nuvi in the car, can't praise it enough. Tons and tons of features and not expensive. I've had a few factory refurbs for friends from www.handtec.co.uk/

 

[neale]

Nuvi's are not suitable for coastal navigation. The Garmin Gpsmap 620 is essentiallty a portable 5" marine plotter designed to take BlueChart SD cards, but it will also work as a car sat nav using City Navigator maps.

The Nuvi 550 is designed to be both an in-car and on water sat nav.

 

[oceanfroggie]

The Nuvi 550 is designed to be both an in-car and on water sat nav.

Sorry I should have said, car sat nav maps are not suitable for coastal navigation, but excellent for situational awareness on inland canals and non-tidal inland rivers.

I was aware some of the top end Nuvi's can accept BlueChart G2 SD cards for coastal chart use.

 

[DryDock]

im using a panasonic strada cn GP50 5" touch screen, i havnt tried it out on the river yet but thought it may be useful for garages and pubs/restaurant will give it a go this weekend.