Cheap Chart Plotter

[Shilbottler]

I don't know if this topic has been discussed before !

A cheap chart plotter solution is available for the smaller boater using a laptop and a USB GPS. The software to tie this together is 'Seaclear II' available off the internet and totally free and apparetly pretty good.

If you already have a laptop then a waterproof GlobalSat 353 USB GPS for about £40 will complete the package. So you may only have to fork out £40 if you're lucky. Charts are the tricky bits, essentially a chart plotter simply displays an image, in principle this could be a BMP or JPG file. A piece of software then takes the data from the GPS and plots a marker on the image. It is only a matter of relating the chart image to the real world this is called geo-referencing. I do realise there is more to it than that ! If you already own a chart then it may be scanned and used. The Seaclear site has an additional program which may be used to geo-reference your chart so everything is taken care of by the free software.

Charging the laptop up before a fishing trip and using the USB GPS means no additional wiring. I believe the GPS comes with a 5 foot cable and the base is magnetic. So simply carry the system on board and carry it off at the end of the trip.

Fishing out of Amble I simply want a chart plotter which will show me the coastline from Creswell up to Craster particularly around the island, in case I run into poor visibilty; this happened last year on a beautiful June evening. The fret just rolled down from the North very very quickly and caught me by suprise.

Does anyone have any experience of using this system and scanning and using their own charts ??

[mark]

we've got a pc on the panser, seaclear is ok, but basic, tend to use maptech offshore navigator or maxsea instead, or my mac laptop instead, using MacENC

as for charts you can buy the maptech library of the whole of the UK for £85, which come with a copy of maptech navigator thrown in. they're basically admiralty charts but with a maptech logo on

did scan some charts a few years back and it is a bit of a faff getting the geo referencing right, and not 100% accurate, most domestic scanners will stretch the image a bit. rather than scan images, I can screen dump the Admiralty charts if you need them - this is the sort of size/quality http://ebgb.net/misc/sunart.jpg (its a 7Mb file BTW!)

the usb gps dongle we use was a tenner off ebay (or thereabouts)

if you do the Bittorrrent thing have a look for C-MAP ECS

reasonably sophisticated software and a library of vector charts for the whole of the UK

[Shilbottler]

Mark

Check your PM

[mark]

did! check yours

add this one to the other one

http://ebgb.net/misc/northumberland.jpg