Marc wrote in
:

I am presently happy with my alpha numeric keypad gps and paper
charts, but I am considering an upgrade to a chart plotter.

Any one want to weigh in with pros, cons, recommendations?

How about hooking the GPS up to the paper charts you know?

http://www.yeomanuk.co.uk/home/index2.htm

I took the guts (circuit boards and puck) out of a destroyed Sport XL and
used industrial double-sided tape to stick it to the bottom of Lionheart's
chart table.

Yeoman will work with ANY chart that has lat/long lines on it. If you have
Maptech chart books, Yeoman is already calbrated for each region book and
each page that has the three A, B and C calibration points printed on it.

Take the tour on the webpage and see how easy it is to use. Your GPS feeds
it RMC data statements to show it where you are on the chart. From the
time you cal it, GPS or not, Yeoman shows you lat/long of the hole in the
puck by just moving it. click the angle button and it will show you
azimuth and distance from a waypoint or your current GPS position by simply
putting that little hole over the position you are interested in. Takes
all the work out of paper navigation and it's as accurate as the WIDTH OF
YOUR PENCIL.

Larry....

The Cap'n is our primary nav tool on a Dell Latitude notebook hooked to the
NMEA network. The Yeoman provides paper chart backup and logging our
course on the paper chart. Screw buying those damned C-map plugs with the
crappy looking charts on them only half detailed for awful prices.....