Really p****d off with

[Achilles]

Maxsea and the UKHO. My Maxsea dongle gave up the ghost, got very hot and I guess burnt out, wouldn't work on any of 3 different PC's. So contacted my UK Maxsea dealer who had some trouble getting through to Maxsea but eventually success and he's authorised to send me a replacement dongle with the configuration codes wich I duly load. My first moan is the cost of the dongle from Maxsea, £56, and I don't know yet whether that includes VAT. Moving on configuration codes successfully loaded and Maxsea works as do my Mapmedia charts, but none of my ARCS Skipper charts will load. So back to my dealer who
liaises with UKHO and guess what, I need new codes from them but I can't have them unless I cough up £30 because part of the process of providing new codes includes updating your ARCS Skipper charts. Doesn't matter that I updated my ARCS charts last year and wasn't contemplating doing so again for a while.
So far then I'm £86 down and possibly more with VAT added, then I have to pay for my dealers time and trouble (with which I have no problem)so I'm likely to end up with a bill for well over £100 purely because my dongle failed.

Rest assured I will be looking at ways in which to make the dongle redundant.

 

[Gunfleet]

Maptech?

 

[pappaecho]

Sale of Good Act ... not of satisfactory quality! Sue them!

 

[jonathankent]

How old was the dongle??

 

[Achilles]

Think I bought it early in 2003

 

[jonathankent]

Well we all know what electronics are like, 4yrs probably isn't too bad for some things.

I agree that the costs seem to be a little extortionate, but I very much doubt there is anything you can do... try asking for a discount - sometimes works.

Was this a USB or parallel dongle?

 

[Achilles]

USB

 

[thalassa]

56 quid? Cheap as chips. A friends' Seapro 2000 contract of 2003 date, that I've seen earlier this week, states that "the dongle represents the value of the whole software package. If it is lost, or fails to operate, it can only be replaced at the FULL COST of the COMPLETE PACKAGE, purchased charts at time of the contract included".

 

[oldsaltyfish]

I have been using a dongle emulator with maxsea and sea map charts and this seems to work well. Probably not legal though. I can check the size of the program and ? e mail it if you would like to try it.

 

[oldsaltyfish]

Just had a look 360KB

 

[Achilles]

OldSaltyFish,

That's very kind of you but I do know of a way around this for the future which a fellow forum member has advised me of.
Many thanks for your help.

Kris

 

[Guest]

Sentinel Emulator .... but it does not unlock Mapmedia / Arcs etc.

For that is Spenno .....

or later Coded utility