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Celestialsailor · 09-12-2015, 10:10

Please keep in mind that I am a 60's guy and my technical savy is back to when I played "Pong".
I'm looking for the best and cheapest electronic charts for my newly installed Opn CPN with a Garmin GPS puck (thank you jkindredpdx).
Looking for South/North Pacific and Mexico and the Americas. Can anyone steer me into the right direction.

transmitterdan · 09-12-2015, 10:54

Get the beta release of O and go to the chart downloader. Download any charts of the US region you like (both vector and raster are available). Also, get free charts from New Zealand and Brazil. See if you need anything else after that. Some Mexico & South Pacific locations will require payment for charts.

Celestialsailor · 09-12-2015, 20:23

Beta release of "O"? I'm sorry...what is "O". OpnCPN?

NahanniV · 09-12-2015, 22:25

Best and Cheapest would be two different things.

Free would be Cheapest.
Might be illegal.
Probably not best, but pretty good.
Search for CM93.

transmitterdan · 10-12-2015, 04:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Beta release of "O"? I'm sorry...what is "O". OpnCPN?

Yes, OpenCPN. The beta version has a new in-built feature for downloading all the free charts we know about. It is fairly easy to use and after it downloads charts it installs them for you automatically.

denverd0n · 10-12-2015, 05:16

The United States makes all of its charts available to the public for free. You can find them here: Nautical Charts & Pubs

NahanniV · 10-12-2015, 05:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by denverd0n

The United States makes all of its charts available to the public for free. You can find them here: Nautical Charts & Pubs

Do the free US charts cover the area the OP is asking about ?

denverd0n · 10-12-2015, 06:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by NahanniV

Do the free US charts cover the area the OP is asking about ?

The entire area? No. But a large part of it.

Celestialsailor · 10-12-2015, 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Yes, OpenCPN. The beta version has a new in-built feature for downloading all the free charts we know about. It is fairly easy to use and after it downloads charts it installs them for you automatically.

I think I have OpnCPN 4.0. does that have the built-in feature for downloading all the free charts?

petter5 · 10-12-2015, 14:58

Chart downloader plugin can be installer for Opencpn 4.0 and later

PlugIns | Official OpenCPN Homepage

transmitterdan · 10-12-2015, 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

I think I have OpnCPN 4.0. does that have the built-in feature for downloading all the free charts?

You can install the downloader plugin for V4.0. But in new beta version 4.1 it comes already installed and works a bit more smoothly. If you are comfortable to install a plugin (which is not hard) then you can add the downloader to 4.0 and get all the charts I mentioned.

Celestialsailor · 10-12-2015, 19:00

Thank you...and where would I find these charts?

transmitterdan · 11-12-2015, 05:49

If you mean the free charts from US and a few other countries (New Zealand, Brazil, etc.) the chart downloader knows where to get the charts.

If you mean the "free" CM93 charts then I can't help you with that.

The chart downloader is a plugin so after installing it go to options->plugins and "enable" the downloader. Then go to options->charts and at the right there will be a tab for the chart downloader. Click that tab and then you can add "chart catalogs" from many countries. After you add a catalog click the "update" button to get the catalog of charts. Select the charts you want and click "download". It should be pretty obvious at that point how it all works.

Note: You can use the right mouse button on the list of charts to get a pop-up menu that will allow selection of all charts in a catalog. This is often what is desired.

MarkJ · 11-12-2015, 06:12

Those free charts are just for those few countries.

For a free world wide charts the best option is the free (probably pirated ) CM93 charts mentioned before.

Google cm93 and find a site to download them. Its quite large, about 1GB so you need to be on a cheap connection that you can run overnight.

Installing them is quite easy (just like pong

) and they really are the antz pantz as you have the whole world.

The other way is to have a chat to any cruiser and they should be able to give u a copy from a thumb drive.

Mark