Garmin BlueChart G2, what do they look like?

... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Mar 23, 2006

Garmin G2 sc-highway5-LG

Today I realized that Garmin has put up more information about their second generation BlueCharts, including the screen shot of the perspective view above, and the unusual top-down high-res photo below. Garmin announced G2 in November along with a boat load of new gear, which is all now coming to market. I’m on the list to see the G2’s on a couple of new plotters, and, of course, will report here. I also came across some surprises on Garmin’s Web site, some seemingly only accessible by randomly appearing links: a new blog; a very cool looking Smart Phone mapping software/data system with combo Bluetooth GPS, speaker phone, and cell mount (whew!); and a mapping program for certain cell phones already GPS enabled. There’s also Nuvi.  No location awareness stone unturned!

Garmin G2 pt-06a

Comments

Hi Ben,

I have donloaded today the updated mannuals of GpsMap3005/3010/3205/478 and the AIS support is there.

It seems prety basic yet: there is a new option in the NMEA IN/OUT for High Speed (38400) and an AIS Tab in Map Page to select the zoom
scale to wich AIS targets appears. The mannual says it diplays MMSI, ships position, course and speed . I have not seen any option to set
alarms, nor CPA/TCPA options, but seems that we can set the heading line of the sips (?) on time or distance.
Ben, can You please tell us a litle more about this AIS support on the new garmin units? Any more deails? Have You see any demos?

Thanks

Pascal
P.S.Anyway, I would like very much if this support would be implemented in our GpsMap276C asap... pheraps, in the next software update, along with the availability of the 378/478, in late May? What are your feeling?

Posted by: Pascal at March 28, 2006 6:27 PM | Reply

Well, darn, Pascal, you're ahead of me. I went looking for those manuals yesterday but they weren't there. Garmin did confirm to me that its supporting AIS in the models listed at www.seacas.com, but you've told me more about the details than the company has! Thanks. I do have a 478 here, which I will write about soon. I don't see a high speed NMEA choice.

Posted by: Ben at March 28, 2006 6:36 PM | Reply

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