laptop chartplotter--which gps device

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chi-girl

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ive been looking at usb gps dongles for my laptop so i can use opencpn in chi harbour.

Is it possible to link my garmin nuvi 1300 to the laptop and opencpn or does it have to be a gps dongle?
 
chi-girl said:
ive been looking at usb gps dongles for my laptop so i can use opencpn in chi harbour.

Is it possible to link my garmin nuvi 1300 to the laptop and opencpn or does it have to be a gps dongle?
Click to expand...
You're better of with a standalone GPS (eg Garmin GPS72) and a USB cable, so you can do your route planning on the laptop then upload your route and waypoints to the handheld for when you're underway.
 
i intend to get a smallish chartplotter for the boat next month but just wanted to play around with opencpn so thought that for max £30 i would have a backup chartplotter.
it would be even better if someone can tell me if a car gps would work so i can dig it out the attic and use that for a week or two
 
It's not clear from the manual that it has a USB socket, and it doesn't have Bluetooth, so I doubt you can connect it to your laptop.

edit: I now see that it does have USB so you can connect it, but it appears as a disk drive so it's unlikely it can supply NMEA data, which is what you need.
 
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I've just downloaded the latest version of opencpn.
It seems a little faster with raster charts but there's something wrong with the zooming in the vector charts.
Probably me though - I have loads of different chart sources so maybe its a bit confused.

Opencpn is not yet my best option for the PC.
I'm still using an early copy of Memory Map (before they insisted on registering over the internet).
MM is still (by far) that fastest plotter I know.
 
i was looking at mm yesterday but i just cant seem to understand it and get it to work.
ive also downloaded seaclearii but cant get the maps to load into seaclear or mm properly unless im using the wrong maps.

ive got opencpn to work with some old mapdata someone kindly told me about and i like the google earth plugin, a bit of a gimmic maybe but still cool.

im new to all this so just playing about.
 
chi-girl said:
i was looking at mm yesterday but i just cant seem to understand it and get it to work.
ive also downloaded seaclearii but cant get the maps to load into seaclear or mm properly unless im using the wrong maps.

ive got opencpn to work with some old mapdata someone kindly told me about and i like the google earth plugin, a bit of a gimmic maybe but still cool.

im new to all this so just playing about.
Click to expand...

You have to have a good set of charts but Memory Map is brilliant.
OK - so it doesn't have do quilting or handle vector charts but it makes up for this with its simplicity and its speed of drawing on the screen knocks Opencpn into a "cocked hat".

MM has a load of features if you look closely.
You can even scan your own charts in and georeference them yourself.
The guy who wrote the geofererencing routines obviously uses the software in anger - great long/lat allignment features.

But as I say its screen routines are smooth and blisteringly fast.

I use it as a general planning tool - both at home and on the boat.
When chatting with friends about places to go MM instantly switches to the appropriate chart.

As posted previously
SANY1590_Small.jpg


Then, when I have decided where to go, MM uploads waypoints and routes to the boat's nav systems and a log/track is automatically produced.

Here's an example of MM's track/log
E_Small.jpg


There is also now an Android phone app called MM Tracker which uses charts produced by MM. I now have exactly the same charts on my phone as well - MM Tracker costs about a fiver.

It will be a cold day in hell when I finally give up MM.
 
the maps ive managed to download are all vector maps so work well on my opencpn and are very quick on my home pc. however the home pc is top of the range and very fast whereas my spatre laptop is an old xp based thing with low memory so will see what its like on laptop.

mm looks impressive and will have a look at that.
 
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