Navionics question

longjohnsilver

longjohnsilver

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I find the whole issue of Navionics quite confusing. I'm looking at buying a chart to use in a Raymarine Dragonfly unit covering Spain, 46xl, but also want to be able to use the same chart in an E120 unit when we're on Eos. There seems to be conflicting information as to whether the cf card needed for the 220 unit contains a micro sd card which can then be used in the dragonfly.
Has anyone tried this? Or should I buy 2 separate cards? The annoying part is that the card for the dragonfly is not a lot less than the value of the unit. And I already have the Navionics Med charts installed on my IPad. Are there any alternatives I should be looking at whilst still retaining the existing units?
 
It's a while since I bought a Navionics CF card, but they never used to contain an SD card of any size. There are SD->CF adapters on the market, but I don't know how successful they would be. SD cards are relatively intelligent devices and Navionics claim that theirs will self-destruct if you attempt to misuse them. I have heard stories of Navionics SD cards becoming unusable after the owner has tried to copy the data off them.
 
Navionics CF is not compatible with the SD format so you will need two cards unfortunately. You can't just copy data either as it's encrypted.
 
I am looking at a similar problem at the moment. I have a Navionics Micro SD card from my old boat's Lowrance plotter.

My new boat has Raymarine kit which takes CF cards. I have just bought a Micro SD to CF adapter and intend to see if it all works next weekend. Research says it should work OK........
 
DrSpock said:
Navionics CF is not compatible with the SD format so you will need two cards unfortunately. You can't just copy data either as it's encrypted.
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I think you probably could copy the data off a CF card - they are pretty dumb storage devices. SD cards are a different matter - they contain some local processing capability and can implement a variety of security mechanisms.
 
maby said:
I think you probably could copy the data off a CF card - they are pretty dumb storage devices. SD cards are a different matter - they contain some local processing capability and can implement a variety of security mechanisms.
Click to expand...

You can't just copy the data - it's creation info is encrypted and has nothing to do with the storage format. You need a hardware writer to create new Navionics files.
 
adey said:
Give the guys at www.yachtingsoftware.com a ring. They know their stuff and helped me out with an 'update' card when I bought an E95 to relplace my ancient plotter. Saved me about 90 quid over buying a new card.
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Thanks for all the replies. Coincidentally I received my sd card from yachting software this morning, Gavin was most helpful. He too recommended buying an update on cf format before the year of free updates expires.
 
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