Navionics cards. cf- msd

tonkatoy87uk

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Evening all.

Is it possible to pull the charts off of a CF card and load them onto a micro SD card? or do you have to fork out on another card?
 
As far as I’m told the cards are locked with their own serial number, if the CF card is current may be worth asking Navionics if they could swap
 
And some older Navionics CF cards can apparently be rendered unusable just by trying to read or copy them in a normal CF reader - Navionics sold their own special reader for those who wanted to view charting on a PC.

I believe an "update" price discount will let you get current new charting on a different format.
 
Navionics cards have 3 layers of security, one of which is indeed the card serial number. You can copy the files to a different format media (at the risk of destroying the original) , or even to the same format media, but they won't work in the plotter.
 
Navionics are stuck in the late eighties when it comes to their approach to selling their (very good) product. They insist on one purchase per device which is very complicated and causes lots of problems with synchronising if subscription dates on all products are not nearly identical. Now that Navionics is owned by Garmin I hope that maybe they will move to single-account per user, and allow plotter charts to be updated over the air from an Apple or Android device.
 
Navionics cards have 3 layers of security, one of which is indeed the card serial number. You can copy the files to a different format media (at the risk of destroying the original) , or even to the same format media, but they won't work in the plotter.

See Post 6 above. My thought was that I'd have to purchase new anyway if it didn't work.
 
I thought that you could just buy the £99ish update card rather than the full £200ish new chart.

You can, I've done it twice for different plotters.

I'm sceptical of the claim in post #5 since I've never heard of Navionics charts being successfully (as in, usable on a plotter) copied between cards before, and he gives no details at all.

Pete
 
+1, I’ve done this for the last 4 years, £100ish for the new card and the old one still useable but not updated.
 
I'm sceptical of the claim in post #5 since I've never heard of Navionics charts being successfully (as in, usable on a plotter) copied between cards before, and he gives no details at all.

Pete

My card (Micro SD) somehow became corrupted during an update, the solution was to copy the one of the files on to the desktop, reformat the card, copy the file back and then restart the update process.

I do wonder what would happen if I tried to create a second chart by copying the file across to another card...
 
I do wonder what would happen if I tried to create a second chart by copying the file across to another card...

The plotter would be unable to decrypt the chart data, since the manufacturer serial number baked into the card (not visible as part of the filesystem) is used as part of the encryption.

It still worked when you formatted the card, because it was the same physical card with the same serial number.

Pete
 
All of these comments show how crap the Navionics business model is. I would really like to keep my plotter charts up to date - but really complicated and difficult to do, due to Navionics's policy of one "subscription" per device, rather than the more modern one "subscription" per user.

I no longer update neither my plotter nor my iPad because of all the complications that Navionics have introduced..
 
Not sure that it’s that hard, once a year upgrade blotter card with new card and renew iPad subscription online and just let app sort itself out. It could be easier with one subscription and as they both get working closer this may not be that way off. Also just been able to update plotter charts on boat using plotter sync so no longer have to bring card back home to PC
 
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I paid the £99 (or thereabouts) chart update fee (UK and Ireland chart) which included a new to micro sd card.
The CF card was returned to me. However the CF card was, some time later , tried in a suitable older plotter and the chart had been deleted .
 
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