Bill Kearney wrote:

My Rosepoint came with all the charts on a separate cd.


Maptech CNP came with a dozen DVDs. High detail vector and raster charts,
aerial pictures, bathy data and more. So you really are getting QUITE a lot
of data for that extra $100.

Shop around, I found mine online for, iirc, $350.

If that is the only difference (other than the branding) it may be that
you are paying the extra $100 for the production of the CDs and the
charts on the CDs can be downloaded for free. But there may be some
additional "bells and whistles" over what can be downloaded.

I don't know exactly how the arrangement worked or works but MapTech is
NOAA's or agent or something like that for the raster charts freely
available for download as NOAA's Raster Navigational Charts (NOAA RNCs™):

http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/Index.htm

The RNC were not available for free public download until a few years
ago (2001 or so?). Prior to that, to get those charts you had to buy
them from MapTech as their BSB family products. Now it appears that
MapTech does the maintenance or production of the RNC charts for NOAA.

I was glad to see the RNCs become publicly available as they are, like
the USGS products like topo mapping, produced with our tax dollars and
should be available to the public for that reason alone. Also, I
consider it to be much to the best interests of the public to have our
national mapping widely and freely available to all individuals and
agencies.

NOAA also has the Electronic Navigational Charts (NOAA ENC®) vector
charts available for free download:

http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/enc/index.htm

The ENC charts cover major ports now and are slowly increasing in
number. Eventually all the NOAA charts will be converted to vector
charts and people will have free access to them all.

Rose Point's Coastal Explorer is an amazingly good piece of software. I
think it is the best product available for us with PCs on boats. There
are some less expensive or even free (the very good SeaClear II for
example) softwares available but last time I looked at it you had to buy
a commercial product to find one that will use both the RNC and ENC
charts.

SeaClear II with the RNC charts is a good low cost alternative for
electronic navigation in U.S. coastal and inland waters.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)