Thus we do not count several online viewers, notably the NOAA viewer for ENC and their NOAA viewer for RNC. (3) Must be stand alone product for PC or Mac or mobile device. Prices range from $50 to $2,000 or so, with several popular products in the $300 to $500 range (Coastal Explorer, Time Zero, WinGPS, to mention just a couple we are familiar with.) Most all of the commercial products include some free demo period that serves to show the unique features they offer, and indeed it is worth checking out a few contenders. (2) Must be truly free, not just a temporary demo. A popular example of these would be the many Navionics products. These can be quite good and the products cost effective, but they are not included here. A large number of these commercial ECS use third party vector charts that they produce themselves based on the official charts. (1) Must show either or both official RNC and official ENC. To clarify our shortlist amongst these hundreds, we have these criteria: Together this is called an electronic navigation system (ECS). Similar integration is available with a couple of mapping software applications running on your local network, such as Aviasail and Costal Explorer.There are hundreds of computer and tablet programs that display echarts in some form and also accept a GPS signal for moving map navigation. If you’re technically savvy about such things, this may be just the weekend project. One caveat: the USB GPS antenna and MacENC software are installed on a Mac Laptop, and connectivity from the iPad to the Laptop is through a wireless router. With the simple addition of a low-cost USB GPS antennae ($69.95 and lower), and the installation of MacENC software ($179.95, iNavX becomes a true GPS chart-plotter. Access to GRIB ( GRIdded Binary) files is by way of, which requires an account on x-traverse (, $10 for a 12-month subscription). Tides, Request/import GRIB and Parameters are powerful for those sailors who want to check raw weather isobar chart information to understand the data uderlying current weather forecasts. These criticisms aside, here are a few examples of the rich features available from iNavX.įorecast. I couldn’t figure out how to “scroll” from one chart to another, which is one of the great features of using software charts instead of paper. iNavX uses raster charts, so it must load various views because of the size of raster graphic files. The repeated “Loading” message seemed needless and helped confuse me when moving around the various features to setup simple waypoints and a course. Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of patience with software, and I expect most applications today to be rather intuitive to operate right out of the box. A very full set of online help descriptions and instructions are included in the “guide.” Unfortunately, I found was really lost unless I spent some time with the online guide. The first thing to say about iNavX ( version 3.1.6, is that it is “feature rich.” From pointing the iPad app to a specific host & port TCP/IP Internet connection to access to a tide table app and multiple settings for a dozen parameters, iNavX has included a lot of bells and whistles. My grade: Definitely an A, but with room to improve. " The information is up-loaded to Navionics servers, where it is then redistributed automatically to all installed copies of that chart. ![]() For example: "Stay about 50' from the starboard buoy. ![]() He showed me a beta version of a very cool feature called "User Generated Information." The user touches a point on the map and enters relevant observations. ![]() I had a chance to speak with Chris Gatley from Navionics at the Annapolis sailboat show in October about future enhancements. This is a bit costly, but each chart-set app is still much cheaper than a comparable set of paper charts. As with the iPhone version, each Navionics app for the iPad is purchased for a different area: “US East” (includes all of the Bahamas), “Caribbean,” and so on.
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