C80 - Missing It

[defjef]

I recently installed the v3.18 software upgrade to the Raymarine C series. While it is an improvement over the version which came with the unit, it is missing navigation features found on the much older Horizon CP170 I also have.

One feature was the tide stations which show a chart of the tides, which can be advanced or regressed in time. The find feature will find the 10 closet stations.

The celestial page also provides useful information about sunrise, sunset and the phases of the moon.

The C series as far as I can tell does not show the cursor coordinates not the range and bearing to the ship's position unless you designate it as a waypoint. Have I missed something?

The chart displays are superior on the C series and the screen res in improved... and of course there is the multi function aspect which allows you to have radar, fish finder and import NMEA data from other instruments. All these features are terrific, but some of the ones above are clearly missing.

Anyone agree?

Jef
sv Shiva
Contest 36s

[Jentine]

I have not yet upgraded to the new software, but all the functions you mention are available, but very hard to find, initially.

[defjef]

Kindly tell me how to find some of the "features" I noted which are easily found on the Horizon CP170 (2000) and hard to find on the C series.

1. range and bearing to cursor from ship's position

2. chart showing the tide for 24 hours (not the tide vector)

3. celestial data: sunrise, sunset, phases of moon

[jstevens]

Defjef,
1. press menu, then Databar Setup, then Configure, then Add Data, then Cursor Position. This puts it permanently in the Data Bar and when you move the cursor you will get a read out. The other means is to use the ruler function from the DATA key.
2. This seems to be something that doesn't work in 3.16 (my install) and presumably 3.18. You have to look on the chart for the <T> symbol, put the cursor on it and hit OK, then hit Tidal Data. There is a search function, but it doesn't seem to work for tidal data. Not sure if that is Raymarine problem or a Navionics problem.
3. If you get to the Tidal Data you also get Sunrise/Set. No moon data that I've found.

John

[jstevens]

Defjef,
To clarify item 2: I meant the search for Tide Stations doesn't seem to work. If you hit the OK button anywhere on the screen it should provide the soft key option to "Find Nearest" and when you hit that button it then should provide a menu to search for a number of options, one of which is a Tidal Station. That doesn't produce anything on my version 3.16. I think it did on previous versions, but I'm old and getting senile so who knows. Anyway I would expect a version 3.19 very soon to fix that problem.

John

[Vasco]

Mine has the second version of the software. It was upgraded in early 2004 soon after the introduction of this model. It works fine and I don't think I'll upgrade the software from what I've seen here. For the tide stations I hit OK -the screen pops up with all the features, scroll down to tide stations, first key on left is "find nearest" hit that, the tide stations come up, showing the next four tides from here you can go to time of tide and also any other day. I am quite happy with the unit.

[jstevens]

So it appears I am not totally senile and the find nearest tide staion works on previous version of the software

[jstevens]

Rick,
There may be a number of good reasons to upgrade your software. There are a number of Navionics features that Raymarine didn't implement until late in 2004. I suggest you not install 3.18, but rather 2.17 might provide some significant improvements until the verion 3.z problems are sorted out.

John

[defjef]

John,

I am finding the "features" on v3.18.. but they have many of them nicely buried or "counter" intuitive.

The CP170 FIND feature will find the nearest tide stations to the vessel.. bingo.... I think the C series you need to locate the cursor on the T symbol and drill through some menus.. ICK

I really find the C series very counter intuitive although you can mess with the screen data til the cows come home. WHY? WHY? Whomever is writing this stuff is smoking something...

The other annoying feature I is that when I move the cursor off screen and then zoom in... when I return to the ships position... the cursor comes back too and I have to repeat the scrolling to the off screen location to move the cursor. The soft keys for Find Ship and Find Cursor are "whacky" and I can't make them work the way I want. The only available option is the one I DON'T want. ICK.

Jef
sv Shiva
Contest 36s

[jstevens]

Jef,
I agree the human interface on the C-series is not the best. It also appears they pushed the AIS update (3.16) out before it was fully tested, hence the immediate release of 3.18. Of course I was one of many who were complaining about the delays in getting 3.16 in the first place, so maybe I got what I deserved.
Hopefully they'll get it all sorted out by version 10.

John

[Vasco]

John,

I have heard that the software development side of Raymarine is their weak spot. As for upgrading, with Raymarine I think I'll wait. The initial version was a bit buggy but version two (my boat is 1500 miles away so I don't know the number) cleared up the bugs. I have used the plotter for two seasons now (12 months solid) and am very happy with it. Of course it's my first chart plotter so I don't have much to compare it to. I did use an earlier Raymarine plotter for a couple of months once(think it was a R70 or something like that) and it was buggy and often lost the fix. My main complaint now is with Navionics. Their Bahamas charts are very inaccurate once you get into the middle of the Exumas. C-Maps used to be worse but last year they adopted Explorer charts of the Bahamas and these are the best. The Navionics Gold takes you from north of Charleston to Turks and Caicos on one chip but I'd even pay extra to have a good Navionics chip of the Bahamas. The C80 is really seamless when stitching charts together, much better than a few others that I've looked at. Hopefully Navionics will upgrade some of their coverage.

[jstevens]

Rick,
I never went south of the Abacos using the C-120 and Navionics charts. The charts seemed to be reasonably accurate for that area, although now that I think about it I pretty much navigated with the Dodge and Pavlidus guides and not the plotter.
I did have the Pavlidus harbor charts on the PC with Fugawi. I bought them through MarinePlanner.com. I think they may have the Explorer charts in electronic form as well. Of course that means your using the C-series display as a very expensive instrument repeater.

John

[Vasco]

John,

I have the explorer charts on CD but like to use my C80 which is mounted on the pedestal. I don't think the C series can be linked to anything. That's why they were cheaper than the other Raymarine plotters. Like I said Navionics was good until just south of Staniel Cay, after that it's more of a guide than anything. The first time it tried to take me over an island instead of through a cut I lost confidence in it. Maybe this is a good thing.