Coastal Explorer charts?

[Keith]

I'm thinking about switching from Nobletec to CE. I downloaded the trial version and like it, but I can't seem to get a chart that compares to what I'm used to in Nobletec. They do have free sample charts, but nothing has the detail that the NT charts have.
For those of you who use it, I assume there are charts out there with the extreme detail of the Passport charts that NT uses?

 

[windmist]

I'm a CE user and to the best of my knowledge, CE allows you to use any chart package you want. They have good support so give them a call Monday if someone doesn't answer your question.

Ron

 

[Scary]

CoastalExplorer

I use all of the standard Noaa Charts plus the Canadian Fisheries and oceans charts. It looks like you can use a host of others as well.

 

[Delfin]

I use CE with the Canadian Hydro package you have to purchase and the free NOAA charts. Some are vector, most are raster, but as long as you are ok with North Up mode of viewing, the rasters have all the data you're going to get in perfectly intelligible form. I really like CE- very simple to use, and it integrates nicely with the autopilot. I don't know how the NT charts look, but since all the data for all charting programs come from the government survey data it's hard to imagine that they would have anything critical to navigation that isn't contained in the free NOAA charts.

 

[CamanoFolks]

Keith;
We use CE with NOAA raster and vector charts, Canadian Hydrographic raster charts and Chartworld Canadian vector charts. Love the free NOAA upgrades although upgrading all 350+ raster charts does take time, best to have a high speed connection. CE now has C-Map charts available which are probably a better choice for Canada than the Chartworld ones.

Our experience w/ CE is from the introduction of the original plotting program many years ago. It has been a great ride due to the response of the programing team to glitches, the upgrades at little or no cost and continued improvement of a great product. I suppose for some folks there are not enough bells and whistles, but for us, I just want a stable program that I can use to plot a course, that will communicate w/ the GPS's, radar, AIS, depth finder and steer the boat. Ours has some 20000 miles of use and I'm not giving it up, ever!