Lowrance 5150c Plotter + Navionics Gold

glennytots

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14 Jun 2010
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After 3 seasons with out-of-date NauticPath charts, I have just bought the Navionics Gold 28XG Chart package for the UK for my Lowrance 5150c. And very lovely the charts look too.
After playing with the plotter and charts at home, I have some observations and queries and wonder if there is anyone else out there with the same combination who can add to my notes and has some tips..

  • It would seem that the package includes several files which each represents an area covered by a group of charts. When zooming out, if the screen reveals the edge of an area, the warning 'overzoomed' is displayed and and no detailed chart data is loaded, even for the part of the area which IS covered by the file. So impossible to get a detailed overview of a voyage across chart area boundaries with any depth or navigation info visible.
  • Very little overlap of charts
  • Selecting any of the Low, Medium, of High 'Earth Map Detail' options makes no difference to the info displayed.... its all either on or off.

So it would seem the main difference with using the Navionics VS the Nautic Path is the need to load up new chart files en route (the NauticPath simply having one file for the whole of NW Europe. ) Also there are certain levels of zoom that one cannot use if one is near the boundary of a chart area. (Could be a problem if using a harbour near such a boundary). The big benefit is that the Navionics charts get updated which doesn't seem [possible with the NauticPath charts. The downside is that one cannot thin out the information.

Any comments or corrections?
 
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