Garmin HomePort - A "New" version of Mapsource for Garmin Chart plotter users.

Garmin has sold marine chart products under their BlueChart brand, for
use on Garmin chartplotters for a number of years. The basic BlueChart
product was available on a CD and could be used with Garmin's
Mapsource on a computer for planning purposes. Work done there could
them be transferred to a Garmin chartplotter for use on board. Earlier
this year Garmin discontinued their basic BlueChart product and no
longer offer any of their more complex chart products such as
BlueChart g2 and BlueChart g2 Vision on CD or DVD.

This made it impossible to do any advance planning or post trip
reviews on a laptop or home computer, everything had to be done on the
plotter. That doesn't make much sense when the plotter is an a boat
many miles from home. I don't think I'm the only Garmin user that
liked planning a trip in the comfort of my home.

It seems Garmin has seen the error in their ways and are soon to
release a product that will allow much of the capability of Mapsource
on your computer, using the charts you have installed in your plotter.

Garmin calls this new software "HomePort"

HomePort is expected to be available in November 2009 for a retail
price of $29.99.

http://garmin.blogs.com/pr/2009/10/plot-a-course-and-plan-ahead-with-homeport-garmins-new-marine-planning-software.html

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=64242#overviewTab

You can download any and all of the NOAA raster and S-57 vector charts
for free. There are freewares, sharewares, and numerous commercial
products that will use those charts. Those charts are the most up to
date charts you can get for our waters, NOAA issues updated charts and
advisories whenever appropriate and quickly.

If you plan routes on a PC and save the routes to a *.gpx file you can
open that file with MapSource and upload them to a Garmin chart plotter.
Without mapsource you can use gpsbabel to convert the data to the
Garmin *.gdb format if that is what your Garmin plotter needs.

Garmin has not seen the error or their ways, they have simply figured
out one of the reasons why people are not buying the new charting and
are scrambling to improve their sales. Garmin is absolutely clueless
how their products are used and what features and most used and most
essential to various environments.

For them to charge money for this "band aid" for their self inflicted
wound is outrageous and stupid.

Jack

Hi Jack. I agree with everything in your response but I'm in a little
diffreent situation than you. I'm in Canada and neither the raster
nor the vector charts of Canadian waters are free. With this software
offering from Garmin I only have to purchase one set of electronic
charts for both the chart plotter and my computer. This is nothing
new, really just a return to what I've done in the past with the
standard BlueChart (now discontinued), which is to purchase one set of
electronic charts and use them on both my chart plotter and on my
computer.

Ken Heaton wrote:

Yeah, you guys really have my sympathy up there. And in the face of
your situation I can see where the cost of the software it a nominal
cost. But once Garmin has developed that software it is more a tool
that they could use to encourage more sales isn't it? Rather than
charging people to be able to continue to use their marine charting as
it was used in the past?

You pay your taxes, your government uses your tax dollars to produce
data that is essential to the safety of the general public for safe
boating. And then they demand that those who most need it pay again to
get it. That is pretty greedy and silly.

The NOAA charting for the shared waters between the U.S. and Canada is
pretty good, it generally has the same level of detail shore to shore.
But I do know that in many areas and on many waters it is less than many
boaters need.

I wish now that someone would take the NOAA charts and convert them to
the Garmin compatible format as has been done for many U.S. topo maps.
It is essentially the same kinds of data as I understand it.

Maybe we'll get it all right after the next revolution...

Jack

Jack Erbes wrote:

Not being familiar with marine charts, does the S-57 vector data cover
everything you would want in the map on your receiver?

--
Dan