[Rhodes22-list] iPad as chartplotter

[Arthur H. Czerwonky]

Chris,

Would you expand on the 'ship finder' and 'weather bug' applications and where to get the specifics.

I am now using Topo4 on my HP touch tablet and am very pleased with the detailed display of the NOAA coastal charts from their annual subscription.  I feed GPS signal via bluetooth.  The HP has done well as I can do weather and bluetooth music/skype/compute, etc to an unwired speaker.  So nice to not have wires!  

Art



-----Original Message-----
>From: Chris Cowie <ccowie at cowieassociates.com>
>Sent: Jun 28, 2010 7:28 PM
>To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] iPad as chartplotter
>
>I have the navionics on my iPhone and it's pretty neat but rather  
>small and slow to pan.  The ipad version sounds great.  I use ship  
>finder on my iPhone and it shows me all the ais ship traffic on the  
>Chesapeake bay.  Pretty nice having a $9.99 ais device in my shirt  
>pocket.   I also rely on weather bug for live radar and imagine it  
>would read a lot better on the ipad.  Maybe next season.
>
>Chris Cowie
>Cowie Associates PC
>
>
>On Jun 27, 2010, at 12:40 PM, "Gregg MacMillan" <gjm at techgra.com> wrote:
>
>> This was posted on the trailsail list, but thought some of your here
>> would be interested.
>>
>> I have the iPad and the new iPhone, but have not tried this yet.
>>
>> --Gregg
>>
>> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>
>> We recently purchased an Apple iPad. Its coolness factor just jumped
>> an order of magnitude when I found and downloaded a complete set of
>> digital charts for all the Great Lakes for all of $25 (Navionics). You
>> can pan and zoom to your heart's content, since these are vector
>> charts. Plotting a route via a series of waypoints is simple--just
>> touch the screen at each waypoint, then tell it to group those
>> waypoints as a route. The screen is much larger than the one on our
>> Garmin Chartplotter.
>>
>> If you have a 3g ipad, the software will show your position
>> continuously via the built-in gps (no cellular connection needed). If
>> you have a wi-fi only ipad, you can buy an inexpensive bluetooth gps
>> and use that (altho this approach does require jailbreaking the ipad).
>>
>> At any rate, the ipad could be used as a large chartplotter, with the
>> caveats that it is not marinized as are many chartplotters, it does
>> not include some bells and whistles such as a MOB button, and the
>> screen can be a bit hard to read in direct sunlight. We plan to use it
>> as an adjunct to our paper charts to reduce the wear and tear on them,
>> as it makes it so easy to look around at with whatever chart scale we
>> want. It can also calculate the distance between any two moveable
>> points. I'm also going to get a bluetooth gps so I can play with it as
>> a back-up chart plotter.
>>
>> If you already have an iphone, the same charts are available for it,
>> but the screen is quite a bit smaller than that of the ipad. Word is
>> that the ipad's gps is a bit better, but both work.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> p.s. as one of the cruise leaders, I must add that it is prudent have
>> paper charts even if you have electronic charts...
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