Lake Map software and GPS on a Laptop in the boat??

[Randy]

I want to use my laptop to display lake maps and with my gps connected, I would like to navigate to areas on the displayed map.
It would also be nice to have the ability to create journal entries
with refernce to waypoints.

Does anyone know any software and digital map sources.

Thanks, Randy

[ang]

Did you try Lakemap.com

[TR]

Randy,

You may want to check out the Nobletec Visual Series. I have the GPS Planner part of the visual series, and can only "download" my tracks from our GPS when I get home. It is nice to see where we trolled for the day, and have all the waypoints marked on the map, which is on the computer at home. These additional maps, cost around $160, but these are very nice maps. One problem that I have had with Nobeltec is that my computer has windows 95 and when I purchased the Visual GPS Planner it was designed for this operating system. I purchased one of the new Etrex series GPS's from Garmin, and found that I could not download from this new series from Garmin. On my previous GPS (Garmin 12), it does download fine. They have now designed an update that works for the etrex series, but it does not work on Windows 95. They are telling me that this will be fixed - we will see, I waited a long time (8 months), for them to update their software for the new Garmin models, but then it did not work for me. This is really a nice softward package, and it has the ability to do real time tracking with your laptop on board, but be careful with the laptop of course on a wet boat.

One other option is to purchase one of the new Garmin series of GPS's that can have a blue chart downloaded to them. I have heard from some people that have them, that the detail on the GPS with these maps is fantastic.

Hope this helps, and I would be interested in hearing from others that have tried the Nobeltec Visual Series products.

TR

[Art]

check out this site. http://www.capjack.com/catalog/FirstMatebyTheCAPN.asp They have several options for what you want to do. They have all the maps and several programs to chose from. Including the one the coast gaurd uses. I run the first mate program and soft charts and it works great. This is also the cheapest site I have found to purchase. Later Art

[ANXIOUS]

LOWRANCE HAS A GREAT GRAPH/GPS UNIT CALLED THE LCX15-MT,AND YOU WONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GETTING YOUR LAPTOP WET!!! AND IT ALSO GIVES BOTTOM CONTOUR,FISH,BOTTOM CONTENT!!

[DHD]

There is a software that lets you do just what you are looking for in fact you can create your own maps
OZI Explorer
:)

[SLIPKNOT]

You can just buy pretty much any new gps that uses c-map or navionics chips. They have the lake maps on the chips.