Magellan Meridian Marine GPS advice

[River Tramp]

Following the PBO reviews, I bought this GPS and hope to start understanding
some of the functions. I am planning a cruise from non tidal Thames to
Harwich in August, and was wondering if anybody has experience with the
navigation charts you can buy for this.

These charts seem to come in two types, the local chart M5G227L doesn't go
as far as Harwich, the XL chart
SD Card: XL CHART - STRAIT OF DOVER goes from Boston to Shoreham.

So my questions are;

Are the charts at the same scale, or are they scaled at all, or are they the
same except the XL chart covers a much wider area and you're simply paying
more for a wider area. The Thales site was priced in dollars, and was $149
for the local chart, and $279 for the XL.

Who & how do you buy these from? Do they come on CD, or a memory card
loaded with the chart.

If you have a laptop, essentially do you have the GPS linked to the laptop
and run the display on the laptop, and is it then in colour (I didn't go for
the "Color" Meridian)

Are the charts updated in some way?

Or is there a FAQ site?

[Nghost]

I have just upgraded my gold to a marine, and have ordered the Bluenav cd.
I am told that you can only load one chart at the time.
I have used the streetmaps Europe to give the track of the Thames on the GPS map.
Mapsend Bluenav cannot be used as a pc based chart plotter you have to load the charts into the sd card on the GPS.
The small charts are all on the CD but you have to order the XL charts on SD cards. I think it is the same data.
If you need to swap charts take a laptop with you and reload the sd card as you move to a new area. some folk buy two licences so they can have two sd cards programmed with different maps.
There has been some chat on this on the yahoo group "Magellan meridian"
I think it is a good value solution getting 191 charts for 130 ukp but how it terns out in usability I will let you know.

>>> River Tramp<ia...@binnacle-design.co.uk> 05/06/03 06:46:40 >>>

[River Tramp]

Thanks for the reply. Where did you buy the charts?

regards

RT

"Nghost" <Ngh...@not.a.real.email> wrote in message
news:fLEDa.153$6R6...@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net...

[Nghost]

I got it from these chaps.
http://www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk/view_software.php?accessory_id=585
They are out of stock of just the cd. so I got the kit with an extra SD card and £20!
arrived next day.
The maps tend to be a bit cluttered on the screen but you can fiddle with the detail settings.
The Thames is covered from Teddington.
But the boundary is at Harwich !
The chart that would take you most of the way starts at the Thames estuary and should show you through the sand banks off Essex.

>>> River Tramp<ia...@binnacle-design.co.uk> 06/06/03 06:15:38 >>>