Question Sea Clear Navigation Users

A question on connection to the computor. I have down loaded the free software do I need a special GPS to connect to the computer or can I just use my Garmin 72 with a data cable also do I need any other soft ware eg Garmin to computer
Sorry to be so vag as this is all new to me and I thank you in advance for your patience

-Stan-

Thanks Frant
Are the electronic charts separate I need to buy I understand the sea Clear programme loads them themself not sure of the source as you go along

-Stan-

Stan,
I would suggest you drive over to Greenwell Point and have a chat. I can help you with all of the above. I'm a long time user of Seaclear, 10 years or more on my commercial fishing vessel. Also have Seaclear on two laptops, one for my yacht.
To answer your question though in the meantime I would suggest you keep the Garmin 72 separate as a backup. Buy a GPS usb puck off eBay, any with the Sirf 3 chip will do, they have different numbers of channels from about 13 to 48 but 13 is ample. The puck will be cheaper than the Garmin cable! I can help with the charts.

I would also suggest joining the dedicated Seaclear forum which has about 800 members including Olle, the writer of the programme we all enjoy for free.
groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/seaclear_mapping/info
You will notice there is an active thread there at the moment about auto loading of charts that I instigated, I'm having a minor problem with the programme I've loaded on my mates machine. Several responses from all around the world. The programme works on all windows from 98 to 7 and on Linux with wine and sometimes there can be minor problems on installations depending on windows settings.
In use the programme is brilliant and far easier to use than a Garmin 72, even has AIS capabilities.

Ramona have sent you a PM. WRG to using AIS capabilities of Seaclear do you have any recomendations for AIS receiver and the value of AIS in Tasmanian waters. ie does the fishing fleet tend to transmit AIS etc.

There are a number of companies selling AIS both receive and transmit, Comar have a good name. I don't have one.

Commercial fishing vessels with Commonwealth endorsements have to carry a VMS which is monitored by Canberra 24 hours a day. This means even when tied up at the wharf you have to have access to 240volts. Power goes off and you get a phone call.
Information only goes to "them" so does not act like AIS and is 10 time more expensive. Boats with only state licenses don't have it and I have not heard of a fishing boat with AIS, probably not much value.

Have a play at this site.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?level0=100#

Had a look at marinetraffic. Only 5 vessels listed as active around Tas. Looks like AIS might be of limited value. I have used shiptracker website which plots the satellite version of AIS for ships worldwide. You can just plug in the MMSI no for any vessel and watch its progress worlwide. I was watching an ex Russian icebreaker bound from Auckland to Argentina to pick up passengers for an Antarctic cruise. My middle son was working onboard. Three days out of Auckland the vessel flooded the engine room and was adrift in the Southern Ocean for several days while they effected repairs. The operational crew are Russian. Son got a bit concerned when the crew started to prepare the survival suits and lifeboats for deployment. "Vee hav beeeg problems" was the word. Fortunately for me I just thought that shiptracker was down and was not relaying a rock steady course for Argentina.

Thanks all for the input I have leaned a lot
I have placed an order with the 20 channel receiver suggested and I will dive over to Greenwell point for a chat mid next week thanks again

where do you download australian maps from for seaclear

I wonder whose money the Australian Government uses to make charts for our area.

It must be the Man on the Moon's money.

Ramona, I wasn't intending to get a transponder, was looking at AIS receiver only. I certainly have no intention of doing a Jesse Watson and relying on the big ships to give way to sail while I sleep down below. I think that AIS is just an advance warning of when/where to expect visual contact with other vessels. The broadcast of the MMSI number should make radio contact with approaching vessels more straightforward. This info is on the website so no great disadvantage over an AIS receiver. As you say watchkeeping is the key as you can't rely on others to see you, this is of particularl importance if many commercial operators are not AIS equipped or keep them turned off. As I understand things many of the commercial fishermen/crayfishermen don't particularly like to broadcast where they fish so are likely to minimize any public accessible info.
The Next G mobile service is my current connection so usage charges are no different to everyday. For Cisco's benefit wont go into the pros and cons of Telstra other than that they do have the widest geographic cover with Next G.
Will let you know how I go with the Seaclear setup. I have access to an A3 flatbed scanner so will scan my available paper charts and add to the CD collection.

Frant,
Telstra 3g is the only phone that can cover most of Australia and that is still a low percentage. Other 3g phones don't have the same coverage.
AIS recieve features on a new vhf radio is another alternative. Then another vhf aerial or splitter is required.
Trawlers and dropliners in Tas waters are Commonwealth endorsement holders. The VMS they transmit only goes to Canberra, they can not "see" each other and would not really benefit from AIS. There are no secrets in the fishing game any more and you find the operators chat to each other and discuss their positions and catch rates, especially trawler operators, they have too much time on their hands. Just find out what the local vhf channel the locals use. Even the navy now just blasts away on channel 69 [of course].
26 years fishing offshore I never had a problem with ships giving me grief. Droplining ground where I worked was right on the main eastern shipping lane. If the ships looked like they were coming too close I turned on mercury vapour deck lights, even in daytime and the ships altered course. The gun line for ship to shore bombardment was in the same area. The navy years ago would chase the fishermen out when they wanted to shoot. These days they are much more accommodating.
Closest calls I ever had were from amateurs. The worst was about 2 in the morning when I nearly collected one of the large Sydney Hobart racers returning to Sydney with probably just a cruising crew. I was doing 6 knots, he was doing at least 15. I failed to see him till the spreader light lit up the mainsail and he passed less than 100 meters in front of me. I had radar on my previous boat but not the last. Probably would not have shown anyway, plastic yachts head on in a seaway are invisible.
Mark one eyeball is still the best.

SandS,
In my previous career as a radar operator I would say radar in a small yacht in a seaway is not going to help much. Good for assisting to identify coastline etc but hopeless against plastic yachts and fishing boats. Does not take much sea return to obliterate small returns. Trawlers with high square bridge areas and steel gallows will show but the biggest menace is small amateur fishers in alloy or 'glass boats that these days that can be found 40 to 50 miles offshore.

I have used my GT31 speed sailing GPS unit with Seaclear on my laptop. Seems to work seamlessly. I have a GPS antenna fix mounted on the boat which is wired into the NMEA hub of my TacTik wireless instruments. The NMEA hub is hard wired into the autopilot and chartplotter and everything talks to each other. The beauty of the GT31 on the laptop is that it provides a completely independent GPS fix for Seaclear , is fully portable and has a standard USB cable connection between GPS and laptop.
Now what I want to do is hard wire a USB cable/terminal to the NMEA hub so that I can hook the laptop to the hub. This is required to allow depth and windspeed to be shown on the Seaclear window, will also be required to plot AIS information and use the Seaclear computer to drive the autopilot.
I am off to Jaycar to see what USB cables are available for hardwire termination.
My chartplotter uses Navionics gold (vector charts and these are not compatible with Seaclear) so I am trying to build my library of raster scanned charts.

Yes, I am quite happy to have the SeaClear/laptop/GT31 as a completely standalone plotter. It is really the AIS if I get a receiver that would need to connect to the laptop for Seaclear. When using this setup I would use the USB port to hook into the NMEA hub and use the fixed GPS antenna and simultaneously get access to depth and wind. Just have to simply unplug the USB cable and plug in the GT31 for a standalone system. With GPS speedsailing we have to carry 2 x GT31 units so there is no shortage of spares, then I have a couple of old GT11's and my new phone has a GPS so no worries with spares particularly if we plot a fix onto paper charts. Not sure how the confict of having two chartplotters sending NMEA signals to the autopilot will work. I assume that if only one is transmitting course info then there will be no conflict.
I am not conversant with the pros and cons of vector c/f raster charts other than that vector is like an Autocad drawing and you can zoom in infinitely, at some stage the resolution available onscreen will be much greater than the chart survey information and you could be left with a false sense of security. With raster at least you are given a warning as the lines become blurry when you zoom in too far. However with vector charts the information can be embedded and gives options to turn on/off different levels of info.
With a laptop screen chartplotter (Seaclear) c/f the 7" screen onboard plotter it is much easier to get a "global "view of a particular chart and then zoom in out with the mouse which is similar to reading a paper chart. If Seaclear could read vector charts I would have no hesitation in using the Navionics package. I spent about 6 hours yesterday (in airconditioned comfort 42 deg C outside) scanning and calibrating a single paper chart. I think that I will look at one of the commercial electronic raster chart packages as even at my lousy holiday hourly rate that makes for an expensive chart.
Happy New Year

Brilliant!! I hadn't thought of that. Scanned pages from Alan Lucas or Noel Patrick's books.

But like you say:-

"I spent about 6 hours yesterday (in airconditioned comfort 42 deg C outside) scanning and calibrating a single paper chart. I think that I will look at one of the commercial electronic raster chart packages as even at my lousy holiday hourly rate that makes for an expensive chart."

It is good to know how to do it but for the time spent it is hardly worth the dollar saving.

Whitworths have "Quick Charts" which look like they are raster format and there have been some others come up on ebay occasionally. By the looks the ebay ones are a rort.

Link to Whitworths "Quick Charts":- www.whitworths.com.au/

I have C-Map 4 on my home computer. I think it is a Russian pirated version and would be well out of date re chart corrections though a friend has been using it onboard for the last 4 years.

It is fun to play with at home and the layers in some locations are amazing. At one remote Pacific Island I have zoomed down to an area that could only be about a quarter of an acre.

The trouble with that program is that you have to run it in "compatability mode" at 256 colours on Windows XP and it takes over the computer. To do anything else on the computer you have to exit CMap. It runs a whole lot better on Windows 98 which is probably it's vintage.

I have it on an old Acer Travelmate laptop on Win 98 with a 7 gig HDD and it would probably work well with a patch GPS antenna but there are issues with com port assignment and baud rates. From memory CMap will only work with a 4800 baud rate and not too many of the patch antennas can be configured to that.

When it all comes down to it I am quite happy to plot a GPS read out onto a paper chart if I can't get a visual fix. Cheers.

Get a few guys and we share. Would be better than weeks of scanning.
Link to Whitworths "Quick Charts":- www.whitworths.com.au/

For those people with out access to digital charts, here is a link to another forum on making charts from Google earth or Bing.

www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f121/google-earth-to-bsb-kap-43680.html