richforman wrote:
I'm thinking of buying both. If I understand correctly, and I"m really
not sure I do but I hope so, I can get all the detailed marine info of
the NauticPath USA onto the iFinder's color screen, with NO OTHER
accessories...hoping this is what the product descriptions mean by
"plug and play".....no card reader, memory cards, USB cable or computer
connection, or MapCreate software necessary? I just pop the chip into
a slot on the unit? (Also from the screenshots on the NauticPath web
site, it looks like it gives water depth info which is very nice, but
not the #'s of navaids? Is this right also? I still like it but
that's a bit of a disappointment, still looks a lot better than my
lowly etrex Legend with mapsource cd loaded, and at not that much
higher a price point.)

Thanks very much,
richforman


I bought the Nauticpath USA card for my fixed mount Lowrance unit this
spring. It's all you need, at least for US coastal areas. I had to also
buy the Navionics 'Hotmaps' card for coverage of inland lakes and
waterways. If I pick up one of the handheld units too, I will likely
also purchase MapCreate to get better road/topography coverage. One
irritation is you can only have one enhanced map in effect at a time,
for example, you can have high res land maps from MapCreate in effect,
OR you can have Hotmaps charts in effect, but not both at the same time
(as each requires a separate memory card). So you do a lot of card
swapping if you want to see what roads/towns are nearby while you're
fishing an unfamiliar lake...

I'm not at the boat right now, but as I recall the navaid
names/numbers/details appear when you 'roll over' the aid with the
crosshairs. It would be nice if at least the aid numbers were displayed
without having to rollover them.

BTW, I've found the current velocity (water current, that is)
information is not very accurate at all for the Carolina coast, where 3+
knot currents are common, but the card rarely says it's more than 1.5 knots.

Good luck,

NSS