My £39 Chart Plotter - will it work with Navionics?

[mainsail]

I was steeling myself to stump up £400 (even £500 in some places) for a Lowrance HDS-5m Gen2 Chartplotter but then I thought - that's a helluva lot of money.

After all, what's so special about a chartplotter? - it's just a glorified car sat-nav isn't it? And indeed it is. In fact most car sat navs will give you a lat and long - but of course don't give you a sea chart.

....But wait a minute - this Lowrance HDS-5m won't give you a sea chart either. You have to BUY that as an extra from Navionics as a micro-SD card.

....So why not buy a cheapo car sat nav and stick a Navionics card into it?

Well I've taken step one - bought a cheapo Chinese made sat nav.(In fact it's called a "Cheap Car Portable GPS SatNav Sat Nav Navigation with Multimedia Player Europe+UK map on 4GB" - from Amazon ) £39 arrived in ten days (freight cost was nil - it was free). It appears to do everything it says on the tin and far more than your average Tom-Tom.

The big question now is will it work with a Navionics Micro SD card? ...Does anybody know - before I actually take step two and shell out for a Navionics card?

 

[shetland536]

i had thought along the same lines as you, the only thing that put me off was that i wanted it for a dory so its going to get wet at some point so i didnt bother following it up but if its in a cabin i see no reason why it shouldnt work.
its still a working gps after all, land or sea. once you are capable of entering in a coordinate rather than a post code then your half way there and if a map is downloadable then thats even better.
i will be watching this post with interest as due to mobile phones having sat navs on now the second hand market is going to be flooded with 2nd hand sat navs.

 

[prv]

Well I've taken step one - bought a cheapo Chinese made sat nav.
[...]
The big question now is will it work with a Navionics Micro SD card?

I would be astounded if it did. Why on earth would a cheapo car satnav have the software to read Navionics charts?

Pete

 

[ProDave]

But this thread does go to show the rip off marine prices.

Why indeed is the (waterproof) marine equivalent 10 times the price? that's a LOT to pay for it being waterproof.

I would be astonished if it does read marine charts though. But do keep us posted.

 

[enterprise]

Why not buy a cheapo android phone and download the Navionics app, sure thats only £26 or there abouts? (+phone)

 

[mainsail]

Mediatek with Windows CE Operating System

My new cheapo (£39) Chinese GPS (it's called "Mediatek" by the way) has a Windows CE operating system which, ostensibly should allow it to work with Navionics as Navionics works on all kinds of platforms.

I originally bought it because I was fed up being ripped off by Tom Tom for new maps. This "cheap" GPS can be bought for the cost of a Tom Tom upgrade and comes pre loaded with fresh road maps. But it's more than a GPS. It also plays MP3 or WMA music , plays videos, plays games , stores and displays photographs, is an ebook library (handy for engine manuals etc), transmits a (tuneable) VHF wireless signal to your car radio with voice instructions for navigation, contains an electronic calculator, an electronic phone directory and can connect via bluetooth to your mobile phone for making and answering calls... and...well, I'm still working my way through the user guide.

Anyway I guess I will have to borrow a Navionics Micro SD card to see how it works with marine charts. I will post back here as soon as I've sorted something

 

[lanerboy]

just buy the memory map marine charts £50 for all of the uk then buy a road angel navigator of ebay about £30, these are waterproof by the way i use one on my off road motorbike

the road angel navigator will run memory map so then you have got a waterproof chart plotter you can draw routes on your laptop then send them to the road angel

simple and cheap for about £80 you have a waterproof colour chartplotter

 

[mainsail]

Memory Map Marine Charts

Thanks very much for that info - I had never heard of these charts before.

I think anyway we can do to smash the silly prices we're being charged for marine navigation kit has got to be a good thing. Well done to Memory Map for leading the way.

 

[Whitelighter]

Good luck, hope it works for you.

But,

What will you do when:

You want radar
You want a fish finder or depth plug in
You want to network with you speed/depth
You'd like AIS
You want to go out in the wet
You Want to quickly see the screen and pertinent information quickly, at a glance at 25knts
You want your autopilot to track a route


And those are just the things I can think of in two minutes.

It sounds an ok tool as a back up, but marine electronics do so much more than just give you a chart. Networked nav (which is the stuff that costs ££££) does much more than just give you a chart on a screen.

If you just want a chart on a screen you can buy dedicated hand held chart plotters for not much more than you paid for some Chinese rip off of someone's hard work and established tech.

If it wasnt for Tomtom, garmin et al. Then the Chinese would have anything to copy in order to flog it to you for peanuts

 

[TopDonkey]

If it wasnt for Tomtom, garmin et al. Then the Chinese would have anything to copy in order to flog it to you for peanuts

If it wasnt for tomtom and garmin etc's.. greed, then the chinese wouldnt know how to build these devices themselves, but with all the manufacturing outsourcing and the drive to obtain the cheapest labour and manufactuing costs 10+ years ago, the big manufacturers effectively shot themselves in the foot by teaching the chinese how to build their devices and giving them all the technology they needed to do so.

they only have themselves to blame for all the copying that goes on nowdays

 

[mainsail]

Cheapo £39 Chinese GPS

Just a quick update before the Navionics test later this week.

Sad to say the cigar-lighter plug on the GPS has come apart during proving tests on the Jeep. The GPS itself still seems to be working ok - but I'm going to have to fork out for a new power lead. In fact I would have cut the plug off anyway to fit the lead to a proper marine plug in anycase - but it is a bit irritating. Whatever happened to Chinese quality?

Also I'm so used to using Tom-Tom I find that thinking my way into the totally different procedures for this GPS is a bit of an uphill challenge . However - onwards and upwards!

More later.

 

[Searider]

....So why not buy a cheapo car sat nav

A Garmin Quest which is basically a car/motorcycle unit accepts bluechart maps.

It can also be set to read D/M/MM on WGS 84 and read units in nautical measurements.

The screen, although small, reads the charts as well as most chartplotters, even in sunlight.

These units can be picked up for between £20-40.