On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:02:34 -0500, Wayne.B wrote:
Very practical and very useful, especially in the off season. It can
also be done for free on a home PC, and very inexpensively on a boat.
All of the US charts can be downloaded at no cost on the NOAA site:
http://www.charts.noaa.gov/
Tim, you will need the S-57 ENC charts for the inland rivers.
A very capable software charting program is available for free he
http://opencpn.org/drupal/download
All you need to turn that combo into an inexpensive chartplotter for a
boat is a $30 USB GPS device, a laptop computer and an inexpensive
power inverter.
http://www.amazon.com/USGlobalSat-BU-353-WaterProof-Enabled-Receiver/dp/B000V5TV22
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Bright-PW400-12-Inverter-Watt/dp/B000OOZY5S
Unfortunately our Canadian friends still have to pay for their
electronic charts.