Antares

[claymore]

I use a laptop loaded with the excellent TimeZero package to navigate, with a GPS thingy to link it to the circulating world and it has proved reliable and I'm really happy with it.
I also have downloaded the excellent Antares charts but have never linked them to my GPS thingy because if I did, I would most likely make a complete fekKeroonie of the whole shooting match and end up rooting under the bunk in the forepeak to fish out the paper charts. These I have not used for some time but I believe you can buy them in colour now?
So - am I right in my thinking or do the IT bright people frequenting this place, think my logic is flawed and there wont be a conflict within the laptop and that I could switch seamlessly from one programme to the other?

[cpedw]

Writing as one of the less bright IT people, I'd say get the Antares working with GPS. It'll go a long way to saving you from those embarrassing encounters with the Rocks of Cuan.

I don't know Time Zero but the internet suggest that it uses C-Map or Navionics charts. I think that means Antares won't work with it but you can use OpenCPN or MemoryMap just to show the Antares charts. I think either (definitely OpenCPN) will operate without any purchase other than the Antares cost but there will be big areas of blank on your screen unless you get some ordinary charts for it too. Then you might be tempted to make the break from TZ but that won't be compulsory. You'd just need to swap between windows on the laptop (it _is_ a windows laptop isn't it?) to see the detailed or wode area view.

Give it a try during these long winter evenings instead of posing as an homme of intrigue in TOP!

[claymore]

homme of intrigue

Moi?
Quelle Fromage

[wully]

I have the excellent Antares charts on my Aye-pad, niffer tried opening them on the big pomme kompweter that shoves them through Aye-choonz intae the Aye-pad.

Every year I have to RTFM for installing the update such is the level of my IT incompetence.

It’s madjik I tell ye.

[mm5aho]

I use mostly Seaclear (but sometimes another bit of software) on a small notebook computer and have Antares integrated.
It pretty much works seamlessly in that when I sail onto a spot covered by Antares, the chart automagically changes to that Antares chart, and if I sail off the edge, I get caught from falling by the Admiralty chart lying below it.
The only hassle is scale. If zoomed in a bit on an Admiralty chart, and then sail into Antares territory, the scale is wrong, usually too zoomed in, and required a couple of button presses (Alt-X).
The Antares charts are just so useful in these shallow dodgy areas I seem to end up in. Also good notes on them for the bottom type, to know about anchoring spots that are better in a bay etc.

[claymore]

Aha - the voice of reason and explanation.
I have a small notebook type of laptoppy thingy and I was wondering whether to run the Antares on that - alongside my normal laptop.

You say that Antares is good for choosing your spot to anchor - does it also offer advice on whether that ought to be a Bruce or a Rocna?

[mm5aho]

If ANtares advised a China made Rocna or a Taiwanese Bruce as opposed to a Scottish made Anchor, I'd have to stop using Antares.

[claymore]

There's no answer to that!

[Shuggy]

I've used Antares charts with OpenCPN on a laptop and with Navipad on an iPhone/iPad but this year I bit the bullet and paid for the Memory Map licence for my iPhone and iPad. It really is the best way I've found of using them, because you can seamlessly scale in and out, switching to Ordnance Survey too (as large scale as 1:25,000). OpenCPN is good too, once you've got the hang of the scaling icons at the bottom of the screen.