Laptop Software?

W

Wayne McCown

New member
Can anyone recommend good navigation software (MS Windows) to run on my laptop?

I am particularly interested (because of where I live and do most of my boating) in Lake Ontario, including the Canadian side.

Thanks, Wayne
 
The problem with the Candian side is NDI and its licensing agreement, which makes charts expensive or difficult to obtain. At one point it looked like this problem had gone away, but apparently NDI prevailed in court and still has the rights to all Canadian charts--which you paid for via your taxes....

I have a DVD which has Offshore Navigator lite from Maptech , as well as all of the charts of the US, including many major rivers. This whole package cost in the high $30 range. It can be updated thru the NOAA chart base. The Offshore navigator will run most of the Electronic Navigation Charts. The current offer is at:
http://www.maptech.com/water/usboatingcharts/index.cfm and $49.95

The nearest thing I can find in Canadian charts is at:
http://www.fedpubs.com/mpchrt/charts/chartcd.htm But the charts are expensive in comparision.

There is also a Fugawi Marine ENC contains a Canadian Bonus Data Pack on DVD. But it contains no Canadian maritime charts.
 
For PC Navigation software, I think Coastal Explorer is far and away the best. Coastal Explorer, a GPS puck and the NOAA (& NDI for Canada, $$$) ENC and BSB electronic charts and you are really as well set up as you can be. A plus for me, Coastal Explorer runs great on a Mac under Parallels - since I already had purchased Coastal Explorer, I don't really need to buy Mac navigation software. This will be my on-board backup to our Raymarine C80, along with the hand-held Garmin GPSMap76.

I have played around with the MapTech software Bob mentions, it came on CD as a bonus with two MapTech waterproof chartbooks I purchased for the San Juans and Puget Sound - it is not as feature rich as Coastal Explorer but a heck of a lot less expensive and fully functional.

For free you cannot beat the RayTech Planner. The link is here, it reads the same ENC and BSB electronic charts. The two big pluses for this package (besides being free) is that if you have a Raymarine chartplotter, you will immediately feel at home with the software - it simulates your C80 / E80 display, right down to the controls and buttons, AND it is very easy to transfer waypoints and routes to your Raymarine chartplotter using an inexpensive CF (compact flash) card. Since the free version is a planning tool only, it is not suitable as your onboard backup. RayTech Planner is a limited version of RayTechRNS 6.0, so you can buy the full version, which with an E80, might be a very smart thing to do...


 
Pat Anderson":7k6pidt5 said:
RayTech Planner is a limited version of RayTechRNS 6.0, so you can buy the full version, which with an E80, might be a very smart thing to do...
Click to expand...

I took advantage of the recent RayMarine sale to buy the RNS6 but have not received it as it is on backorder. :(

Warren
 
Another item of info for laptop nav programs...

Costco sold a bazillion copies of Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005 for $99, which included the MS S&T software and a GPS puck. Unfortunately, the driver MS supplied was hit and miss with other programs (and with S&T, according to a lot of postings.) The puck is the Pharos GPS-360.

When I got the MacBook, I went to the Pharos site and downloaded the Mac driver for the GPS-360, and it work like a charm on the Mac with MacENC, and I imagine any other GPS enabled software.

Then I got Parallels, and installed S&T and Coastal Explorer on the Mac. The MS supplied driver did not work with either program under Parallels, so back to the Pharos site to download the Windows driver - now everything is working great, can run both S&T and CE on the Mac under Parallels.

The Mac and Windows drivers can be downloaded at the Pharos site.
 
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