chart plotter how to

A

anchorout

New member
I have an Elite 5 DSI and an Elite 5 HDI GPS/Depth finders. They work well for me and I have had few problems. However, the arrow indicating my position is in the center of the screen. It takes several key strokes and a lot of time to see what is farther out ahead. Frankly. I care little for what I have passed. My concern is for what I am about to get myself into.

Does anyone know if it is possible to permanently move this cursor to the bottom of the screen? Lowrance forum has been less than helpful.
 
Are all your reference charts displayed with the course up? That's not the usual display. I generally use north up. Using north up means that the course is sometimes sideways, sometimes top to bottom but the view is consistent.

However, on the Lowrance Gen 2 display there are 3 options on the plotter that give Map Orientation. Once one of those options is selected, then go on to Look Ahead, which will place the location icon in the appropriate position. These options are located in Chart Options.Your Elite manual should have some description of Chart Options if your unit can display the various chart orientations. Then it's an easy step to Look Ahead. I hope.

Boris
 
Chart plotter are about like kids electronic watches/timers several decades ago. Press this button three times, hold that button 4 seconds, spin this dial two clicks to the left. Aaaargh!

The instructor at the UDCG navigation class hinted that buying one that operates on a computer has all sorts of advantages. I was reluctant to concur. She was right.

My Lowrance is anything but intuitive. Anyone in the Seattle area familiar with it willing to instruct me for a couple hours? I use bits of the chartplotter, the radar screen, the boats path. I really should spend a few hours at dockside playing with the thing.
 
RobLL":189ja6ix said:
Chart plotter are about like kids electronic watches/timers several decades ago. Press this button three times, hold that button 4 seconds, spin this dial two clicks to the left. Aaaargh!
Click to expand...

Not trying to rain on your parade, but FWIW:

My 2002 vintage Garmin 2006C chartplotter and and an earlier Garmin I had are quite intuitive - that's why I chose Garmin. Vastly better than my upper helm's Lowrance/Navionics chartplotter from a only few years ago. To get the 2006C's cursor to be closer to the bottom of the screen all you do is choose "course up" rather than "north up". Seems like a good way for it to work if you're following a route.
 
Thanks for the advice. If I hit "return to boat" the arrow jumps to the center of the screen. "North Up" or "COG Up" it still ends up in the middle of the screen. I can scroll it to the bottom and watch it slowly roam around the screen, but that isn't the same as home position being at the bottom, with a full screen view of what is ahead.

Probably requires a software change to accomplish.
 
I can sure see not wanting it to show you in the middle of the screen, makes good sense to me too. I don't know if I would want it on the very bottom of the screen either. My RayMarine C120 Classic allows center, down 1/3 and down 1/4 if I remember right. Since I use one screen with chart and radar overlay I want it to show some of the aft view too. I run at the 1/3 down from center. I think more accurately it is 1/3rd of the way up from the bottom of the screen. That helps keep me from getting run over from behind, (ferries that run at 20 knots, and Victoria clipper at 30+ along with the big ships that can be anywhere from 16 - 25 knots).

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

January_2010_343.sized.jpg
 
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