Navionics Newbie

[Andibs]

Hi folks

My new to me boat has a Raymarine A50d plotter (plotters also being new to me) with Navionics loaded but no card and I have no idea of how old the charts are.

I also plan to buy a cheap tablet as a back up / planning device.

There also is a choice of silver, platinum charts etc.
My requirement is purely for coastal cruising.

Does one card fit all ?
I also presume that I will have to sign up to a provider for the WiFi and I would also like internet access on the tablet.' Is this data only and who do people recommend?
If I use the tablet at home for planning, how does this transfer to the main plotter.
What level of chart would be appropriate for my limited needs?

Many thanks for any advice

Andy

 

[RichardS]

Hi folks

My new to me boat has a Raymarine A50d plotter (plotters also being new to me) with Navionics loaded but no card and I have no idea of how old the charts are.

I also plan to buy a cheap tablet as a back up / planning device.

There also is a choice of silver, platinum charts etc.
My requirement is purely for coastal cruising.

Does one card fit all ?
I also presume that I will have to sign up to a provider for the WiFi and I would also like internet access on the tablet.' Is this data only and who do people recommend?
If I use the tablet at home for planning, how does this transfer to the main plotter.
What level of chart would be appropriate for my limited needs?

Many thanks for any advice

Andy

I don't understand how it can have Navionics loaded if you don't have the chart card?

Richard

 

[MikeCC]

Unfortunately, I think transferring waypoints and routes from Navionics app to an A50D is not going to happen. Completely different systems. You'd be better off with the A50D on a 12V supply at home.

 

[laika]

I don't understand how it can have Navionics loaded if you don't have the chart card?

Base map?

To the OP...Navionics still do compact flash cards (which is what you need, not the more modern SD card) and this navionics compatibility doc suggests they're still compatible with the A50d (the cloudfront url being another example of how navionics's IT skills are not exactly l33t: Anyone recently tried visiting their terms and conditions on their website and declining the "let us use cookies" option?).

If I were the OP I wouldn't bother with platinum. I've never felt I needed the 3d pics etc.

AFAIK (and this could be wrong) the only official way to transfer waypoints from an external device to one of the old classic/wide series was using the old navionics usb card reader attached to a PC running raytech. Thinking about that on the bus this morning it shouldn't be hard to reverse engineer their waypoint format if it hasn't already been done (and then create a suitable plugin for OCPN). I knew that card reader might come in handy one day....

But bottom line...don't count on being able to transfer waypoints from navionics on a tablet to your plotter.

On the "Internet access on your tablet" point, don't discount the option of using your phone (if you have a smartphone) as a hotspot rather than signing up for another data contract. Also note that not all tablets have a GPS chipset. You mentioned "cheap" so probably aren't considering an iPad, but famously the wifi-only (ie no phone connectivity) iPads which are rather cheaper than the ones which take a sim card don't have GPS. On an iPad you can overcome that by using an external GPS device (I just acquired a Garmin GLO bluetooth thingy which seems to work with navionics)

 

[RichardS]

Base map?

It can't be. The OP is calling it a "chart" and surely there's no way anyone would call the blocky basic outline of the coast a chart?

Richard

 

[maby]

I think some Raymarine plotters come with Navionics Silver baked into the memory - a lot better than the world wide base map, but less than Gold or Platinum. I believe you can upgrade to Gold or Platinum with a useful discount on the list price. Personally I would go for Gold - it includes the relatively essential features like real-time tides and currents, but misses out the flash and trash like aerial photographs.