In a move that I for one appreciate, they released a new version of their boating app for free including all the Government S57 charts, and also free trials of their add on Nav module. But when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stopped printing charts in October last year, they began offering free vector and raster chart downloads, which led to the introduction of quite a few new mobile apps that provide free or low-cost charting and navigation. Lowrance have a couple of free products, which are just as painfull to use, but you cant see the maps, but you can enter marks and save them to an sd card (if you have an existing card slot).Navionics is introducing a free version of its popular smartphone and tablet navigation app. When you buy the software you get a usb card reader which is able to decrypt the data from your card and display it, this will allow you to view the maps on your pc and plan routes, add marks etc. The only way at the moment that you can see the charts is to by the navplanner software $200.00 aus from fishon, $285.00 Aus here. Thanks for that info, & I note all your warnings, but I'm not that smart with the technology, so what do I need to normally be able to put the SD Card in my pc? Is there a bit of hardware I need to purchase, for example the Navionics nav planner? I noted your comments previously that the software was below par in your estimate but the multi-card reader that comes with it is a good piece of kit? Are there alternatives?Īndy is 100% spot on, the data is encrypted using a hash that uses the serial number embedded in the SD card. I have had mine Gold card (SD Card) in a standard PC many times. I will not accept responsibility if something does go wrong. Like you said Mark, the warning is there.

The reason the warning is on the card (this can be found on another forum from a navionics employee) is that they had a lot of bonehead clients that tried to copy them and stuffed them. IF you have a copy of the maps on your pc, and you stuff your card you could copy the maps back onto the same card and it would work. THat is why you cannot use the maps on another SD card. Your software does the same thing, then compares the results of the two. The SD card has a unique serial number, and navionics use this serial number and securly hash it with a signature found in your chart. You cannot copy the card, simple as that. When navionics said they would not put my card onto a bigger card, and said I cant save waypoints and sounder plots too it I got pissed of and reverse engineered the software. I have also copied off the maps onto my Hard drive.

Used navionics gold card