Raymarine now charging for free noaa charts

[autumnbreeze27]

Gotta love Raymarine. I just purchased the Blue Charts for Mexico, and thought I'd update my NOAA charts at the same time.

They used to provide them for free, now they're charging $10/ea.

Glad I downloaded them all last year when they were free, but it doesn't seem right that they can tell you "Buy our chart plotters and use the free NOAA charts" and then change it to "Thanks for buying our chart plotter for use with the free NOAA charts, each one can be yours for only $10!"

[four winds]

Must one acquire the NOAA charts through Raymarine for their plotters?

May be some manual uploading method if acquired from the .gov?

[autumnbreeze27]

Raymarine chartplotters have some kind of proprietary chart format, so the standard downloads from NOAA do not work.

[pesarsten]

If you can find some documentation that says that you can use the free NOAA charts on the chartplotter, and if you purchased it based on not having to purchase NOAA charts, then you should contact the FTC and file a complaint based on the Magneson Moss act. It certainly would seem to be a violation of the warranty of fitness of purpose, and warranty of merchantability.

[CarstenWL]

... afik it was never said that you can use the free NOAA charts from the NOAA website (because that never would have worked), the 'Raymarine charts based on the NOAA material' were free until recently.

Carsten

[KWISPEL]

It is how it is by marine electronics. Raimarine is well the champion in tricks and confusion advertisments. The others are not better and tray to trick you also in a lot of ways.
Exampel: My Simrad Nss 7 gif me after updates still just simpel big black and with ais simbols on the chart.
nmea compactibel means not nmea 2000 compactibel by Raymarine, ...

Vesper Marine have well nice products and make also good and free updates and for Questions can you phone the office and there is allways a good technical answer.

I use open cpn insite on a normal screen and it is connected with a waterproof tutch screen outside. It follow the new trends and the new stuff on the computer market is small and schokproof. I am now free to use the free updated charts from a lot of countries wit sat overlays, place marks on it wit a hole crusingite in it, ... .

[moseriw]

Therefore I threw the chart plotter out and have 2 small PC's. One sealed as spare.
My chartplotter is OpenCPN with all NMEA signals coming in from the bus!
No Problems at all and utmost chart compatibility. OpenCPN ist free and the small netbook is about USD 250... So skip that plotter scrap!

[moseriw]

Originally Posted by CarstenWL

... afik it was never said that you can use the free NOAA charts from the NOAA website (because that never would have worked), the 'Raymarine charts based on the NOAA material' were free until recently.

Carsten

No problem with OpenCPN but you have to use the NOAA kap files

[mindsofman]

Dont know why they charge ? Their charts are the worst out there,,,oh ! Maybe the
Mongolian navy has the worst.

[CarstenWL]

Their charts are the worst out there

You really think NOAA charts are bad?

Carsten

[mindsofman]

Dont know what raymarine does to noaa
Charts but DONT follow them blindly..
Come to think of it,dont follow any chart
Plotter blindly.

[Whomda]

Originally Posted by moseriw

Therefore I threw the chart plotter out and have 2 small PC's. One sealed as spare.
My chartplotter is OpenCPN with all NMEA signals coming in from the bus!
No Problems at all and utmost chart compatibility. OpenCPN ist free and the small netbook is about USD 250... So skip that plotter scrap!

Do you mind providing more details on your setup?

How did you connect the NMEA to the PC?
What netbook did you choose?
Do you have a protective case/mount?

[moseriw]

Do you mind providing more details on your setup?
Sure her it is:

The only problem is with the different Setup of the data transfer protocols:
I have:
Wind Instrument Raymarine ST60 - Seatalk
Sounder/Log Raymarine ST60 - Seatalk
Vesper Marine XB-8000 AIS Transponder with WiFi incl GPS NMEA 2000
GARMIN - VHF 200 Marine Radio NMEA 2000

Bus Layout: Seatalk -> SeatalkNg -> NMEA2000 to XB-8000 -> WiFi/USB

______________
Old Furuno Radar - incompatible to bus systems
Cetec Benmar Courskeeper - incompatible to bus systems
______________

Radar - Special care is required as it may be that the signals are not marine bus compatible and have to be provided to the pc with video signal busses or hopefulli USB(com) Check carefully.
______________
Most AP's provide NMEA 0183 or 2000 or RaymarineNg.
______________

The setup of the bus system converters is a little bit tricky and should be guided by a marine supplier who knows what he is talking about.

In my case I had to buy only 1 socket: Seatalk->Ng and a wire from Ng to 2000 as this systems are compatible (Just needed a special Plug on one side for Ng)

Hope this helps.

willi

p.s.: Raymarine Seatalk and NMEA | Official OpenCPN Homepage
maybe this?: check it
RAYMARINE E55053 SEATALK 2/NMEA2000 CABLE 1.5M: Amazon.de: Elektronik

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by Whomda

Do you mind providing more details on your setup?

How did you connect the NMEA to the PC?
What netbook did you choose?
Do you have a protective case/mount?

I suggest you search "OpenCPN" on Cruisers Forum. Some recent conversations have been about Win tablet/pcs. I used an Acer netbook for years with OpenCPN, then an ASUS T100, and now an ASUS T200 (Windows Tablet/PCs). The PCs are not connected to my instruments, but provide chartplotter function using Free NOAA raster and Vector charts. If your tablet/pc doesn't have onboard GPS, you can buy a $20 USB GPS receiver.