Charlie;
Your earlier post started me thinking about my plan to put the Active Captain Companion app on my iPad for cruising, and made me think about also putting the Garmin Bluechart Mobile app on the iPad for route planning, etc. So I’ve been talking to Garmin as well. Seems we are both caught in the limbo between generations of software. Your 540 and my 541 use the SD card slot for transferring data between PC and plotter. Homeport PC software is intended to sync the chart data and user data like routes and custom waypoints between PC (actually I should say “computer” since there is an OSx version) and plotter using the SD card. Homeport uses the charts that are on your plotter. The current generation of Garmin plotters, from the 547 up, has Bluetooth capability, so you can use a phone or tablet running Bluechart Mobile to create routes and waypoints and sync them to the plotter using Bluetooth. The Bluechart Mobile app is free, but you need to purchase charts. The chart region that covers US coastal waters, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Canadian coast costs $29.99. I was thinking that I would have charts off my plotter on my laptop because of the Homeport software, and I asked about syncing them to my iPad. After all, I will be downloading Bluechart Mobile from the iTunes Store onto the laptop and syncing it to my iPad. But unfortunately there is some difference in the chart data or how it is handled, so I would need to buy the chart dat for Bluechart Mobile, even though I would already have the Bluechart G2 data from the plotter on the PC. Oh well, it’s only money. Rick Brass From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 11:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Stus-List iPad/iPhone app for route planning Thanks to all for the advice about route planning. It turns out that I had a copy of Mapsource that had been used for a Caribbean trip several years ago. Your comments started me on a search for it. If I understand the listers correctly, I should be able to use it for route planning on my computer and then transfer the routes to my Garmin 540 on board via a standard SD card. Since I had only used it once, I was able to get a code from Garmin to use it again (the last time) for no charge. They want more money for opening it again! (Sounds a little old-fashioned by today's standards IMHO). Ironically, their web-site simply refused to let me "...navigate..." to this code--which I pointed out was a little strange for probably the world's largest and likely best source of ...NAVIGATION... gear! :>) Of course I could have purchased Homeport and used my 540 for the charts and then transferred the planned routes back to the 540 as well--at least I think that is the case. At least I saved a trip to the boat this way. Charlie Nelson Water Phantom [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Pete Shelquist <[email protected]> To: cnc-list <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Mar 13, 2014 10:35 am Subject: Re: Stus-List iPad/iPhone app for route planning FWIW, I use Garmin BlueChart Mobile on an Ipad and have no complaints. Fast and easy to use tools. Also, it’s easy to connect a remote GPS via Bluetooth and use that for live tracking in the car, boat, etc. Good luck. From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]?> ] On Behalf Of Marek Dziedzic Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 8:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Stus-List iPad/iPhone app for route planning Charlie, As far as Garmin is concerned, I am traditionalist and I like the MapSource the best. If you insist on using an iProduct, you are somewhat out of luck (you can use BaseCamp, I believe, but I cannot guarantee results). But it works very well on any Windows PC and, as some other listers can attest, an old BlueChart v.2 can be of great help in planning routes. Marek (in Ottawa) ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:43:12 -0400 From: "Rick Brass" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Stus-List iPad/iPhone app for route planning Message-ID: <009001cf3e2b$5060c9f0$f1225dd0$@net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Charlie; Since you have a Garmin plotter, have you thought about using Garmin Homeport software. I know you can load it on a PC, at a cost of $29.00. You can download the Garmin chart set that is on your 540 at no cost, IIRC. Then you can not only do the route planning on your laptop, but you can copy the route to the SD card in your plotter and have the route available on the plotter to be followed. I think there is a version available for iOS, but you can't put the route onto an SD card because there is no slot in the iPAD - at least not on the iPAD that I have. Rick Brass _______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com [email protected]
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