Open CPN Charts East Coast Australia

[charliehows]

seems there are no free resources to load these, where do you buy them?

[Boracay]

I am not aware of any available Australian charts in a format that is read by OpenCPN. The small print is down the bottom of this page.

That said there are Google Earth plugins that allow information from Google Earth to be converted and loaded. I had a look and it's a tedious process. Howevewr I found Google Earth did not give enough information to navigate the Qld. inland waterways for example.

I used a Standard Horizon CP300i with a wide area chip that I brought while in the States. Main problem was too much data rather than too little, with the occasional drop out. Their CP190i is listed at a fair discount from Defender.

I brought my wide area C-map from West marine but Defender may have them as well.

I believe a plotter is essential for navigating the NSW and Qld coasts. I used the Maritime NSW maps and the Maritime Safety Qld. Beacon to Beacon book and that, together with Alan Lucas' Guides gave most of the information I needed.

[haiqu]

Buy a copy of Jeppesen C-Map on CD and use the worldwide vector charts that come with it. Their software is rubbish but it's worth the money just for the charts and other bonus stuff. I bought a copy off eBay for $130 and it had the 2002 charts, which are very little different to the latest 2008 charts. After that date Jeppesen went to a proprietary format.

There are free raster charts available but your computer will seem like it's trying to swim through treacle while displaying them. i.e. s-l-o-w.

Rob

[gmau]

Originally Posted by charliehows

seems there are no free resources to load these, where do you buy them?

Do a search on CM93 charts.

It's a big file!

[charliehows]

thanks all, might put it in the too hard basket and fill a couple of gaps in my paper charts instead. I've got alan lucas' books too which are pretty good. Got a bit excited when i managed to download those puerto rico test maps but then the problem of power consumption etc rears its ugly head, so stick to paper i think...