Another "voice" about VNS 5.0. Don't be too discouraged, Verne, installation of 5.0 (or the "update" to it, if you already have 4.0) is really not difficult, and in my nearly four year experience with Nobeltec products (Navtrek, VNS 4.0 and now VNS 5.0) I've had excellent response from Nobeltec's "tech"s. Sure, there was a little confusion making contact while they merged with the Tides people, but the end result just made the combination stronger. Joe Engle made the point very well, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. If good software is just going to be pirated indiscriminately, the incentive to make improvements will be diminished and we'll all be the losers. As a sometimes lecturer and writer on radio navigation (GPS and Loran-C), I can say that a number of the nav application programs are very good...each with its own strong points and weak points. I've stayed with Nobeltec in great part because that's what I've been using and therefore what I'm both comfortable and adept with. It, and up to now, BSB raster charts have made my navigation life very simple and secure from Georgia to New Brunswick, Canada, especially in those occasional Gulf of Maine fogs. I did purchase the Region 2 Passport Folio recently and am playing around at home with the split screen and other neat stuff you can do with VNS 5.0 and vectors. The Passport vector charts are light years ahead of the old vector charts which we had in units such as the MasterNav 4000 ten years ago. The pricing seems to be similar to the BSB rasters for the same Regions. Whether one should want or need both raster and vector will have to be answered individually, but if one's budget might make the difference, I'd sure urge acquiring one OR the other and using the extra money for hooking up a differential receiver to my GPS if I didn't have one. In sum, many of us are, or soon will be at that time of life when sailing or trawlering should be comfortable and fun. Chart plotters, and especially, on board computers (lap top or "desk top") with effective and reliable application programs (such as VNS 5.0, Maptec, Cap't, Jeppsen, etc.) certainly are strong contributors to that comfort and enjoyment. As an old navigator and former instrument flight instructor (Navy), I've bitten all the fingernails and wiped all the sweat I care to. Electronic charting with Loran-C and DGPS has certainly been the light at the end of my marine navigational tunnel. -- Robert F. Preti GB-42 "Zephyr" iterp@concentric.net