Tablets and Antares

ctva said:
...Or just buy an iPad..... You know you want to. :)
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Really. I have watched too many people spend too long trying to get this stuff working on their iPad. For me it all seems to work straight out of the box on Android. My escape from Apple dependency a year or so ago was the best thing I ever did in the IT terms.
 
Amulet said:
Must have really well calibrated eyeballs, the ability to see in the dark, the ability to see in fog and some extrasensory ability out of sight of land. Given that it's trivially easy to have a wee screen displaying your position, I can't understand why you wouldn't.
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I'm perfectly happy transferring readings from GPS to chart as required, and at the sort of scales involved for Antares charts I find eyeballs work fine. Sailing is my hobby and that's how I enjoy doing my hobby. If something else works well for you, great.
 
dylanwinter said:
that is jolly good
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Just install the app' download the charts and follow the instructions on the VMH site to activate it all. The unified charts are available just for the tablet, or for tablet and PC. The tablet only version is a bit cheaper. I also joined VMH, which made the charts a bit cheaper and the membership lasts for life.
 
PaulRainbow said:
You can put them on two android devices (don't be tempted to waste one on your phone, keep it in case you drop the tablet in the drink) and a Laptop if you have one.
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So, you drop your tablet in the drink. You have your 5" screen phone with you but you haven't installed the VMH charts on it to 'save' a £7.50 licence.. Now THAT would be a waste.
 
Steve_N said:
So, you drop your tablet in the drink. You have your 5" screen phone with you but you haven't installed the VMH charts on it to 'save' a £7.50 licence.. Now THAT would be a waste.
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Not really, i'd rather use my 17" laptop than a 5" phone. When i get my replacement tablet i'll put my second installation on that.
 
dylanwinter said:
is this the thing I need t install before I add the charts?

http://novalauncher.com/
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Yes, that is it. You can add it at any time and reverse back to the original way the tablet was at will so it is a no risk option. Imo it is a much nicer interface but as I said it depends on when your tablet was originally made as when Lenovo took over Motorola they improved their system. For a while their tablets looked like a dogs dinner whereas I have a compartmentalised type mind and like different screens for different types of apps and Nova allows you to format the structure very easily and elegantly.

As a rule of thumb the closer you can get to stock/vanilla or 'pure' Android the better a tablet is. Quite why the manufacturers think they know better and load them up with bloatware etc escapes me. It is really just a way of getting their brand noticed I suppose.
 
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Costs so far

Lenovo - £89

Navigator app that allows me to run the charts - £6.95

To get from turning on the tablet to start downloading the zip files from Visit my Harbour was about 45 minutes

you can download a pdf of instructions

http://visitmyharbour.s3.amazonaws....IL 2015-instructions for android DOWNLOAD.pdf

I am a member of the website so I will be using the set for android

£7.99

http://www.visitmyharbour.com/download-android-charts/

So far so good

downloading the zip is going to take a couple of hours

D



the zip is 29 percent done to
 
Have fun - you will really enjoy it :)

One point and I apologise if I read it on here and that is do not get too complacent when looking at the flashing GPS icon on the Antares charts. GPS is amazingly accurate these days but bear in mind that you are say 5m from the the front of the keel and allowing 10m for GPS inaccuracy and you should allow a circle of uncertaincy of 15-20m. On the Antares charts this looks like a long way ! Personally we only use the Antares GPS position as confirmation and use transits (taken from a mixture of the pilots and Antares charts) mainly when navigating in tight spaces.
 
Storyline said:
Have fun - you will really enjoy it :)

One point and I apologise if I read it on here and that is do not get too complacent when looking at the flashing GPS icon on the Antares charts. GPS is amazingly accurate these days but bear in mind that you are say 5m from the the front of the keel and allowing 10m for GPS inaccuracy and you should allow a circle of uncertaincy of 15-20m. On the Antares charts this looks like a long way ! Personally we only use the Antares GPS position as confirmation and use transits (taken from a mixture of the pilots and Antares charts) mainly when navigating in tight spaces.
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I shall use them once they are installed but sad to report that the process of blindly following sets of instructions bores me sideways

I shall of course expect the science to make sure that I am exactly where it says I am
 
Am confused by the Visit my Harbour site/concept

Can you download all the charts to use offline ?

Dylan mentions £7.99 but I am being asked for £25

Does anyone know if you can use them on two different devices ie tablet and phone on one membership or do you need to buy a separate subscription ?

Any help accepted !
 
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Storyline said:
Have fun - you will really enjoy it :)

One point and I apologise if I read it on here and that is do not get too complacent when looking at the flashing GPS icon on the Antares charts. GPS is amazingly accurate these days but bear in mind that you are say 5m from the the front of the keel and allowing 10m for GPS inaccuracy and you should allow a circle of uncertaincy of 15-20m. On the Antares charts this looks like a long way ! Personally we only use the Antares GPS position as confirmation and use transits (taken from a mixture of the pilots and Antares charts) mainly when navigating in tight spaces.
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You must have more dexterity than me with conventional navigation. I can't often do 15-20 metre accuracy and certainly not very quickly. I would agree with the notion that any pilotage where 15-20 metre accuracy is mission critical wants some on-the-ground corroborative evidence. Usually there's some kind of common sense strategy - e.g., you can often make an approach with controlled error, ensuring that you know which way to turn when the echo sounder bleeps at you. The combination of all information sources beats any one, but I have very many times done things with computer navigation that I'd never have considered without.
 
Storyline said:
Am confused by the Visit my Harbour site/concept

Can you download all the charts to use offline ?

Dylan mentions £7.99 but I am being asked for £25

Does anyone know if you can use them on two different devices ie tablet and phone on one membership or do you need to buy a separate subscription ?

Any help accepted !
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It has been a tough struggle so far

not really VMH fault but google desire for gathering data on me and getting me to generate passwords it then chooses to ignore

I ended up paying £14.99 as I could not find the £7.99 button

you get the charts cheaper if you have already paid VMH £25 to join up

I am not sure what happens when this tablet gets wet and dies

I assume I go through this loop again

so far about five hours of waiting between periods of filling in forms - some several times over

something called an APX has now arrived in my inbox

my instructions are now to get the software to talk to the APX

initially I clicked the wrong APX and it was rejected

now clicked the correct one and the charts are activated

started this game at about 11.30 this morning

I am sure a 12 year old could do it faster than me

D
 
4.42 in the afternoon

tablet arrived with the post at about 10.30 and I got stuck in straight away

VMH charts now installed

now paid for antares charts and awaiting email of link to download them

Very nice Steve at VMH has emailed me instructions on how to integrate them with the VMH ones via Marine Navigator

beginning to feel like an automaton being forced to follow detailed digital instructions

this filling in forms feels a long way from sailing and feels horribly like work

my advice is to find a 12 year old to do all this for you and pay him £10 for doing it
 
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dylanwinter said:
I also like this idea

any gainsayers?
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I've got two hudls they were a great bit of kit. Then a major update seems to made one useless, then the charge female fitting wore out. I ditched and bought a samsung.
The other hudl I never updated and as it got less use the charging connection has not woreout.....yet, works fine. I think these two issues have some coverage in these forums. Jack
 
If you buy the Unified package you can download the charts onto two laptops and two android devices. Laptops can use a few different software packages, IMO OpenCPN is by far the best. Android devices use the Marine Navigator app. For tablets the best bet is to download the app then let the app download the charts, it is a big download at about 1GB. Then you need to activate the charts with VMH, bit off a faff but VMH are very helpful if you have any issues.

Once installed, the charts are yours to use forever. If you break/drown/lose the tablet you can use your second Android download, if you haven't already used it on your phone. If you use all the downloads up you have to pay again. There is a USB dongle available for PC users who break lots of PC's, but not ASAIK available for the tablet.
 
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