Download free charts for garmin homeport3/14/2024 But what it won’t do that some other apps will is put up values like distance and bearing to the next waypoint. Moreover a boater can easily create a route in BCM and then drive along it. and I still didn’t know exactly where I was a lot of the time! Which is why I think that constant automatic plotting on a fairly precise digital chart is maybe 90% of plotter magic. ![]() Incidentally, I spent many years doing paper chart navigation - dead reckoning, celestial, bearings on known objects, transferring Loran A & C LOP’s and fixes to chart, set & drift calculations, praying, etc. Isn’t that the essence of modern chart plotting and what you need for a backup? Garmin BlueChart Mobile certainly can constantly plot your boat’s position on a full detail electronic chart using an iPad’s internal GPS (as seen in that last screen shot) or a high-precision Bluetooth GPS (I tried that too) or your boat’s fixed Garmin GPS if you install the WiFi Adapter (also tried). Also note my demo iPad had the full North American chart package ($50) and that there are other packages for much of the planet… In this particular case I was trying to break it by tapping multiple sections, but BCM was unfazed. But if you want to make sure you have the charts you need when your iThing is offline you’ll get to the screen below, which let’s you select sections while telling you everything you need to know about file sizes, space available, etc. If you’re online and zoom into a new place the app will simply download the detailed charts (assuming you’ve made the in-app purchase). Nice! BCM’s chart management is similarly well designed. The various information windows above were all reached with just another tap on the radial menu. That’s what pops up when you touch a spot on the screen and it cleverly labels nearby objects and can also begin a route making session or take you to almanac data for that day at that spot… Please also notice the “radial chart object menu” on the screen above. None are, which is why I’ve always advocated having more than one chart format on board. Hat’s off to Garmin’s cartography department for emphasizing and clarifying what you really need to know. One thing I noticed during the often complex 1,100 mile trip to South Carolina was how I would often turn to the Garmin 7212 when things got a little hairy navigation wise. That’s nearly all the major wx food groups in my view, all very easy to get at and with world wide coverage according to Garmin (please test that, readers, as I failed to when I could have)…īut I hope you’ve noticed in these screenshots how good the Garmin charts look, which is why - along with the weather data and AC - that I think BCM will also be popular with folks who don’t own Garmin hardware. And remember that BCM can also download and display GRIB wind files, as I saw during hurricane Sandy. Now I’d like it even better if they used NOAA’s more fine-grained Bay forecast, but that’s a quibble and could be changed easily. Not only does BCM display all the near real-time buoy sensor readings but it tacks on the NOAA marine forecast for my section of coast. ![]() The screen below shows what I got by tapping on the Wind Direction icon for the weather buoy near my home on Penobscot Bay. ![]() (While they’re obviously displayed along with Premium weather radar, do note its long and clearly demarcated animation.) However, it took me a while to figure out that weather buoys don’t output “conditions” for some reason and BCM can give you even more than a full buoy report… On the screen above you’re seeing all the stations that are reporting Wind Direction, and in the one below are all the stations that ouput a “Conditions” symbol. Consider the Weather Stations menu, for instance. At first I’ll stay with the weather features, as Garmin’s own descriptions of BlueChart Mobile (BCM) seem overly modest about what they’ve packed into this app.
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