TWL: Stroll down the Dock
Reading "the list" to me is likened to a daily stroll along the dock (except
I don't get to say hello with every post). It is almost guaranteed I will
learn at least one piece of information that will be useful in the future or
has made clear something from the past. Just as with the stroll down the
dock, there will be some people I never see, they stay inside their boats.
Others have a permanent lawn chair on their aft deck and I couldn't sneak by
without some rhetoric even if I wanted to. I walk the dock everyday not only
to gain knowledge but also because I have taken a real liking to many of the
characters that post here. As with anywhere I have been, some of the people
I like and some I don't, some are knowledgeable and some aren't, some are
behind me but most are ahead of me, some are always negative, some are
always positive and some are neither. I took my first walk to learn more
about boats, now it's also to say hello.
My first legitimate question: I have chosen C-Map NT for the charts that
feed my Furuno. Does anyone use this system and have good things to say
about it?
My first offer of information: When I first started reading the list, it was
very difficult to wade through the blob of a list as it gets deposited to my
e-mail every evening. Shortly there after, someone's post directed me to
Mike Harrington's website that compiles the list every night and makes it a
snap to read. For those of you who are new or have somehow missed this
information, here it is again.
http://www.hollowbox.net/digests/
Rex and Tanya Ott
M/V ZEUS
launch Spring 2002
My first legitimate question: I have chosen C-Map NT for the charts that
feed my Furuno. Does anyone use this system and have good things to say
about it?
Rex, "Heritage North" arrived from New Zealand equipped with a Furuno
1650 GPS/chartplotter/depthsounder, and generally I've been very pleased
with it. BUT (there's always a but, isn't there?) I learned after a lot of
head-scratching, button-pushing, long-distance calls and delay the
following:
1) Furuno's customer support here in Eastern Canada is pretty
woeful; as a starting point, their website doesn't appear to acknowledge
Canada's existence; and
2) The C-Map NT charts for Furuno are not like the C-Map NT charts
for other chartplotters. The little chips for all the others look the same,
are the same size, and go into the slot the same, but they do not work in a
Furuno. The manual does not even hint at this, and Furuno (and C-Map NT)
dealers, at least those around here, don't know it either. I finally got
set right by the friendly and helpful folks at a Vancouver dealer, and it
was confirmed by C-Map headquarters, somewhere in New England as I recall.
When the replacement chip arrived, I must say that I was, and remain,
favourably impressed. Neat piece of kit, especially for a guy who has never
used electronic nav systems before. With the Furuno talking to the
autopilot, we did a multi-leg offshore passage in Georgian Bay, intending to
fetch up close to one of the big entrance buoys leading into Parry Sound.
At the appointed minute, several hours and turns after the start, the
autopilot politely asked if I'd like to turn now. I held off for 30
seconds -- had I turned when invited, I'd have hit the buoy. Not too
shabby.
Good luck with the Furuno in ZEUS.
Fred Blair
"Heritage North"
Logan 33
Toronto
At 03:10 PM 11/22/2001 -0500, Fred Blair wrote:
2) The C-Map NT charts for Furuno are not like the C-Map NT charts
for other chartplotters. The little chips for all the others look the same,
are the same size, and go into the slot the same, but they do not work in a
Furuno. The manual does not even hint at this, and Furuno (and C-Map NT)
dealers, at least those around here, don't know it either.
REPLY
C-Map as well as Navionics are vector type charts.
As such the database must be translated into symbology for that particular
display driver.
Each manufacturer must write a program to interpret the data and display
it as they wish it to appear.
For example,Garmin will show the bouys with a circle of the correct color
while another manufacturer wil show that same buoy as it appears on the
chart but with a letter designating its color.
This is why you cannot mix brands of charts chips from different
manufacturers.
While the blank memory chip is physically the same for many brands the
inside structuer of t the data will differ.
The processor looks for file headers in order to know wat to do with the
data.
If you have old chips from another brand it may be possible to reprogram
them with new cartography.
Talk to the dealer about this.
Canada has always been lagging in getting good cartography from these
suppliers. When I questioned the companies as to why I was told that they
focus on the volume market places first.
Southern Florida is the single biggest market so naturally that area
gets first attention.
The ICW comes next in priority and so forth.
When Garmin changed from Navionics database to their own Blue Charts ,
they did not have access to the Canadian content database. Although
they have now signed a licence agreement with NDI it will be six months
to a year before this data will show up in Garmin products because it
takes that long for Garmin programmers to compile the interface software.
Incidentally, I learned from an industry contact that when Furuno was first
shopping around for cartography database they were looking to produce a
chart display with a 50 dpi resolution. This is in contrast with other
brands which produce 200 - 300 DPI resolution. Their justification for
doing this was to save on memory.
I do not know what the final outcome was but I hope someone was able to
convince Furuno to spend more $$$ on memory and get a decent level of
resolution in their chart plotters.