Even better information display and additional data.

Version 6.19 of PC Plotter adds more data that can be displayed in the extremely useful "Data Windows". If you have not used the data windows before, create one using the "Create Data Window" button in the "View" button bar. Then right click the data window and select "Data Window Properties (and select the data to display)". You will then get a large list of data that you can display in this data window including "Destination Waypoint Number", Bearing and distance to the destination waypoint, "Waypoint Closure Velocity", XTE and a new steering indicator. The steering indicator has a variable size steering indicator, dependent on how far the vessel is from the route track.
All data windows can be resized to any size (you can fill the whole display if you wish with a data window) or they can be setup to show only on a second screen. These data windows can also be docked, created as tabs or as fly-out windows just by dragging and dropping these data windows together.

Some floating Data Windows showing route information

Data Windows added as a docked area at the top of the chart window and some docked in the information bar on the side with the Vessel information pane and the NMEA data pane.

Southampton Boat Show Competition

I know its a little way off but the Southampton Boat Show 2013 will soon be here and you can win tickets to the show by clicking on the link below:-
http://www.southamptonboatshow.com/2012/exclusives/competitions/win_show_tickets.aspx

London Boat Show News

Well there goes another London Boat Show but what a great show we had. Sales were very strong with half the stock we took sold in the first 3 days. We had to ship up more stock from the office to cope. There was a lot of interest in both PC Plotter and the navigation planning tool NavigationPLANNER (www.navigationplanner.com).
Lots of Raymarine, Lowrance, Simrad and B&G customers were buying PC Plotter as:-

1. Chart table repeater to their Raymarine/Lowrance/Simrad/B&G unit at the wheel. Its a lot cheaper than the Raymarine/Lowrance equivalent and you get additional benefits... see below.
2. Adding a cheap USB GPS and then PC Plotter can be used as a completely independent backup system (as you can always guarantee that the main system goes down just when entering a port in a force 7!!)
3. A planning tool for planning the routes while in the comfort of the armchair but still being able to save the routes and waypoints in a compatible file format for the Raymarine/Lowrance/Simrad/B&G plotter. Also for Humminbird as well.

It was also nice to speak to a lot of existing customers and get feedback from them. Its nice to hear that the customers love the system and find it easy to use and very reliable. Some customers are doing more than 3000 nautical miles a year with the product.... more sailing than I do in a year!! Thank you for your support and happy sailing in 2013.

London Boat Show

The London Boat show is almost upon us again. Where does the time go!!
It would be great to see all the existing customers of the most popular Navionics based chart plotter, PC Plotter and also potential new customers. We can give you a "one to one" run through of all the great features and also answer any of the questions you might have. Also if you bring your laptop with you we can install the program for you and also the charts (as the charts can now be copied to the hard disk and used without the need for the chart cartridge  every time you start-up PC Plotter). The latest version of PC Plotter now supports Windows 8 as well.
Also bring your Navionics chart cartridges with you and we can update them at the show with the latest chart updates and all new chart cartridges can be copied and used from the hard disk.
Come and see us on stand A169 at the show. Please feel free to email us and arrange a time for a demonstration or just come along and request a demonstration. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ON STAND A169 between 12th and the 20th January 2013

SOUTHAMPTON BOAT SHOW

Here we area again at that time of the year when the Southampton Boat Show takes over Southampton.

Come and see us on stand G122 in Ocean Hall at the show and see the new features and functionality of the most reliable Navionics based PC plotter on the market. Don't forget that this can be used as a repeater for an on-board plotter, a planning system at home or on-board, a backup navigation system if your on-board plotter fails OR as a full navigation system in its own right. Whatever your requirements PC Plotter is a cost effective solution.

PC Plotter version for Windows 8

Windows 8 will soon be upon us and we have already tested PC Plotter under Windows 8 and we can confirm everything works fine. You will need a new install for Windows 8 (the current Windows 7 version requires some updated security key drivers) but the program will function as it does under Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.
We will be doing some further updates for the Windows 8 version as there are some new features in Windows 8 that we can take advantage of. Since Windows 8 also supports touch screens better than any previous versions of Windows, PC Plotter is a good position to benefit as we have had touch screen menus in our systems for many years.

Lowrance/Simrad/B&G Zues link

The latest upgrade for PC Plotter now allows better integration with the Lowrance HDS range of chart plotters as well as the Simrad and B&G Zues range of chart plotters. Although previously routes and waypoints could be transferred between these plotters and PC Plotter, it used the older version 3 files. The latest version of PC Plotter (Version 6.14) will now write the version 4 files which ensures all waypoint symbols/icons are preserved but also ensures that route points do not get repeated as waypoints. Using the same scheme for referencing waypoints and routes as Lowrance, Simrad and B&G, ensures smoother transfer of routes and waypoints.