Navionic Gold v Lowrance chart???

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sailingrbg

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Can anyone advise on the difference between Navionics charts. At the London Boat show Lowrance were doing a deal whereby if you bought the 3500C you were getting charts for all of Britain and most Europe for a show special of £50.00 (normally £150) if bought with the Lowrance unit. Even the Large Navionics charts @ £200 would require I believe three charts to cover Britain never mind Europe. Does any one know the name of this other electronic chart and what is the difference in quality between them is. While on the face of it the large Navionics chart seems good value @ £200 approx the normal price of £150 for this other chart covering all of Europe seem unbelievable value any comments gratefully received
 
the charting is the new Lowrance Nautipath range and Lowrance gave the distributor and retailers a pleasant surprise at LIBS by bringing a load over in a suitcase for distribution free with Lowrance plotters sold at the show..........they were also demonstrated on the Lowrance stand in their units.

This proved quite a success and a lot of Lorance plotters got sold - especialy the 3500c which at 480x480 pixel 256 colours and sub £400 became a no brainer with full charting for the whole of Europe (Iceland to Gib) thrown in..........thus all the free charts went pretty quick. Discussions resulted in Lowrance making a further supply available at a significantly reduced price of £50 - which remained popular!
The charts are produced by Transas for Lowrance, but the units can use either Navionics or these.
I understand that the later batch are in the process of being sent out by Silva to customers right now that bought units at the show - I know this because I was one and actually rang to chase this morning!
I already have a Lowrance unit with the Navionics charting and will be comparing the two for detailed differences as soon as the chart arrives. My impression was that the new charting makes better use of the units colour capabilities than the original Navionics but I also understand that the latest Nav offering has also improved significantly in this area.
Comparing contours and detail both seem similar but someone else has pointed out that Northney marina pontoons appear clearly on the Navionics but not, apparantly, on the Nautipath. I do not believe this is a reflection on the general data detail of the Nautipath but more differences in the underlying data sourced by the 2 providers.

More to follow!

Someone may know the source data used by Transas?
 
I bought one of these packages at the LIBS. I was all set to buy the Navoinics charts as well.

I had a friend with me and we both looked closely at areas we know well. The only visible difference was that the likes of my own marina, Northney and Bembridge, a place we both know, had no pontoons showing. But as far as we could see all important detail was visable. In fact detail was good and sharp.

My intended use is as a pilotage device at the helm. Like all navaids it should not be used on its own, exercise caution, get confindence in the chartware and I believe it will do the job.

When I bought, they had run out of the chartware, its being delivered tomorrow, if I get a chance I'll take another look over the weekend.
 
We have used the Lowrance unit with Navionics charts and found the detail more than adequate. We entered West Cove on the Kenmare River with an entrace of less than 50m metres. Blind reliance on the unit would have had us aground. We must check the settings!
A joy to use, with the usual caution = it is a guide to navigation, use other data to confirm you position!
 
That is a somewhat scary error you have going on - I would want to know exactly what's wrong!

That sort of 'feature' will have been charted well for many years and both the Lowrance plotter and navionics charts default at WGS84 - have you changed these in some way?

My post above wasn't intended as a comment on the detail in the Navionics charts but more info on the new Nautipauth ones being launched this year in response to the original poster.
 
When my 3500c benifits from WAAS correction it shows acuracy to 6mtrs, other times this can slip to 40mtrs, like any other GPS. So with an entrance 50mtres wide its not surprising that blind reliance would have run them aground. This is pilotage, you should be relying on Mk1 eyeball, if the visability was so bad that you couldnt see, stay away!

Duncan, my charts are due to be delivered today, got yours yet?
 
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When my 3500c benifits from WAAS correction it shows acuracy to 6mtrs

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I thought that the EGNOS signal was still including the type 0 message and thus not to be used as its in testing? If your GPS is resorting to using that, I would be concerned. I know I can make my Simrad kit use the testing message (by telling it to treat the type 0 message as a type 2 effectively) but although I do that when playing around on berth, when I'm navigating I would not do that.

OTOH if you're using the US WAAS signal, then its likely to be very wrong for Europe and thus actually increasing rather than reducing the error.

Someone with more GPS knowledge than I will correct me though, I'm sure /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Rick
 
Yes, I haven't checked EGNOS status for a month or two, but until it's officially live, it's not a good idea to use it for navigation, and using WAAS signals designed to correct for errors in US is likely to introduce significant errors here
 
I just notice last time I switched it on some of the satalite bars were marked with a 'w' there also appeared a note saying WAAS correction enabled, it was at this point the accuracy was dissplayed as 6mtrs. I did not investigate any further.

When I get my own chartware installed I will have a better idea, am I where it says I am? etc.

Maybe I'll invite tome on board to have a look at some time. Dont tell him though I'll ask him on for a beer then get around to the 3500. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'll invite tome on board to have a look at some time. Dont tell him though I'll ask him on for a beer then get around to the 3500. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Good plan. Once he's explained it to you, you can tell me all about type 0 and type 2 messages as not sure I fully grok them /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Rick
 
No no, I think you better ask him, if he thinks I'm going to use the information that he gives me commercially, he may not tell me or want too much beer/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Any way what are type 0 and type 2 messages?
 
Heh.

I think type2 contains the correction information and type0 is a testing message (but they put the type2 message inside the type0 when testing). Most receivers ignore the type0, but the type2 packed inside it is available for equipment to use if it wants to. Or something like that...

Rick
 
gald you chart's arrived - can you make any observations in line with the original post then? How do the colour's look compared to each other?

As I am going to use mine in parrallel with one of my differential units, at least for the time being, I will be looking closely at any differences in the positions. I am used to a 7ft accuracy from that unless I am traveling, or anchored, with the radar blocking the DGPS signal ;o( to put that in perspective if I amm moored, and turn off the 'smoothing' function in the software, with the diff function on and zoom at max I don't see my position moving around in the same way I experience if I turn the diff off, or do the same thing on other units.
 
I just spent a few hours today comparing the Nautipath chart from Lowrance vs. Navionics XL3 on the 3500C plotter. The area I studied in detail was the Bristol Channel and in particular the "difficult bits" I know around Flatholm, the Wolves and Lavernock point. In summary, my findings were as follows:

If I'd never seen a Navionics chart, then the Lowrance/Nautipath product would have satisfied me. But when you compare the two side by side particularly at large scale zoom levels, the difference is very noticable. The Navionics chart is in different league when it comes to inshore detail. It is also much less cluttered in its display over large areas. Buoys are named directly on the screen, contours are clear, etc, etc. I compared the detail to a large scale Admiralty paper chart of the area, and I was amazed how good the XL3 chart was. In fact it looked virtually identical. I would have very few concerns about using the Navionics charts for detail pilotage (although I would always have the paper version with me...old habits, etc), but I just didn't think the Nautipath product did the same job anywhere near as well. If you got it free or for £50, then it's a good buy. If it's sold at £150...then no contest...go Navionics on this plotter in my opinion. There are some problems still to be resolved on the tidal data module on both charts, but that's a plotter issue that Lowrance need to fix via a software update.
 
Just ordered my 3500C ....

Checking through the web .... it seems the Lowrance charts are Freedom Charts based on Mapmedia ....

The other advantage is the ability to use standard flash MMC / SD cards ... via bog-standard card writer / reader .... to record mapmedia or other compatible data via PC and then input to plotter .....

I'm really looking fwd to playing with my 3500C .... and its European charting ... all in deal from on-line store at 445 quid ...
 
but I rang them last Thursday................. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I'll give it 'till next Monday - I'm not exactly in a hurry; the only urgency is to make a comparison between the 2 charts!
 
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