Coastal Explorer Route to Raymarine C-80?

Pat Anderson

OK, I know the Navionics NavPlanner is coming out Real Soon Now (it was SUPPOSED to be out at the end of February, but nobody is listing it for sale yet as far as I know). I do have Coastal Explorer, which is way cool, and I will have the laptop on board connected to either the GPS puck or the Garmin GPSMAP76 (both work just fine with my laptop, I used them on the Chesapeake and also with MS Streets and Trips). So my question is, how can I get my Coastal Explorer waypoints and routes into the C-80? The little PCWaypoint program works GREAT for just waypoints, but it requires a LOT of manual entry of coordinates into the Excel spreadsheet and only handles waypoints not routes. I love graphical PC chartplotting with Coastal Explorer. Of course Garmin has had MapSource software for years (had to acknowledge that to keep Bill F happy). Right clicking a selected route in Coastal Explorer has "Send to GPS" as an option, but (A) I don't have a cable and don't know how to build one, and (2) the C-80 doesn't have any place to plug in a cable from a PC. So I am guessing I would have to gin up a serial cable from the PC and figure out how to attach it to the C-80 NMEA inputs - not for the faint of heart. Coastal Explorer can also export to Navigation Object, Maptech and OpenNav formats, which I could save to a CF card and insert in the C-80, but as far as I know, the C-80 cannot import any of those - or can it? So I am wondering if anybody has any info (it would be great if the explanation could include the HOW as well as the WHAT). TIA for any help here!

starcrafttom · Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:39 pm Post subject:

Navionics is killing me with the release date of nav planner. I called their u.s. head quarters and as close as they could get was "spring". I dont know what the hold up is. As far as your problem pat , I would think that use the cf card would be the route to take. That is the way that the nav planner will work. you make up your routes or what ever and then save it to a card then transfer to your unit. The only hitch would be what languge it will read. so give it a try and let us know what happens. I was told that the navionics programs work best with the scan disk brand cards.

Sneaks · Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:48 pm Post subject:

BoatersLand is taking pre-orders for $124.99 so it must be fairly close.

Don

sailor-d · Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:51 pm Post subject: SanDisk cards for Raymarine

I read all the bumf on the Raymarine site and they did specifically mention SanDisk CF cards. I grilled the Raymarine rep at the Vancouver Boat Show and he seemed unaware and surprised that their literature specified SanDisk. I plan on using a reformatted Canon 32mb CF card (woefully small for a camera) that came with my camera. He indicated that this card would work and 32mb is plenty big for waypoint files, firmware updates etc.

Cheers - Dave

starcrafttom · Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 3:51 pm Post subject:

pat I heard form west marine that if you down load the free trial version of the raytech 5 you can us that to up load all your waypoints striaght to the card in the right format.

gljjr · Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject:

Pat,

Send an email to support at Rose Point Navigation. I'm sure they have had people trying to do this and they might have a solution for you. When I first told you about the software last year I echanged emails with a guy there several times. He was very helpful and interested in what I wanted to do.