GPS - GPS Map for River

Author

GPS Map for River

bgstaab@yahoo.com

2008-02-19, 3:33 pm

Would someone be able to tell me which Garmin Map product would be
best for rivers? I'm looking for something that has a good mapping of
rivers such as the Sacramento, Yuba, Feather rivers (these a CA
examples) -- (medium to large rivers). I don't really need depth,
obstacles, etc... just a good layout of the river channel, boat ramps,
etc.

Thanks for the advice.

Jack Erbes

2008-02-19, 10:33 pm

bgstaab@yahoo.com wrote:
> Would someone be able to tell me which Garmin Map product would be
> best for rivers? I'm looking for something that has a good mapping of
> rivers such as the Sacramento, Yuba, Feather rivers (these a CA
> examples) -- (medium to large rivers). I don't really need depth,
> obstacles, etc... just a good layout of the river channel, boat ramps,
> etc.
>
> Thanks for the advice.

The Garmin MapSource BlueChart charting has good coverage of the
Sacramento river all the way up through Sacrament and to a little north
of Colusa. That includes showing all the navaids and soundings for the
navigable areas. That also covers the Sacramento Ship Canal and all the
areas transited by the big ships that come up from San Francisco Bay.

But it does not have anything on the Yuba and Feather rivers. I think
it boils down to the inland waters that NOAA has responsibilities for or
something like that.

They have another product called U.S. Inland Lakes that covers smaller
waters. There is an online map viewer for that and you can look at that
at the following link to see coverage in the areas you are interested in:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/...nlandlakes.jsp#

That mapping is sold on DVD and also preloaded to SD, microSD, and
Garmin Data cards (the latter is a proprietary card used only on
Garmins). It is for use on various Garmin GPS receivers and chart
plotters.

The mapping you buy on DVD is installed to a PC, and then you can upload
it do memory card or free memory in various models of receivers/plotters.

Generally speaking, it is much more expensive to buy the preloaded
memory cards than it is to buy the DVD and load your own cards.

Use the map viewer to see if you are going to be happy with the level of
detail provided. As I understand it, the detail that you see in the
online map viewer is the same detail you will see on the preloaded cards
and on the PC install. But I have not actually seen or used any of the
Inland Lakes mapping yet.

The newer Garmin marine chart plotters are getting dumber than hell.
They no longer have NMEA outputs or RS-232 or serial outputs that will
let you upload and download data from the chart plotters.

The new stuff seems to be designed for a market of boat owners that
pretty much want to buy it with preloaded mapping and charting, turn it
on, and use what is there. If you buy the newer models, expect to have
to place waypoints and build routes on the plotter and not be able to
upload, download, or transfer nav data by memory cards.

If you think the mapping will suit your needs, look carefully at the
models that are compatible with the mapping. You really have to study
the details and have a sort of checklist of features and capabilities
you expect to receive before you buy or you'll find yourself with a
pretty box that is dumber than hell as far as meeting the needs of many
boaters.

Jack

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