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I
purchased a used boat with an early 1990s C-Map cartridge plotter and
wonder where I can find a place to trade the cards for the ones of Florida
that I need. N.B., via e-mail
To be
brutally frank, I’d say that your chartplotter is virtually worthless
at this point and if you’re lucky you may be able to use the old
cards to get a discount from C-Map on new NT+ cards.
If you
insist on using your old plotter, C-Map does still make, and even occasionally
updates, its early 90s-style CF-85 cards, and you can exchange your old
ones for the current version of different areas (for a fee). But before
you do, you really ought to compare how your old plotter looks and performs
against the latest generation. I think you’ll be amazed at the difference.
The early plotters tended to look like Etch-A-Sketches, and functions
like zoom and pan, which you’ll use a lot, were ponderously slow.
The hardware has gone through several generations of significant improvement,
and we’re right now seeing another big improvement in performance
versus cost. There are good, five-inch, sunlight-viewable color plotters
selling for around $700 and monochrome ones for much less.
The
vector charts also keep improving. C-Map switched to its NT data format
in 1995, along with a new card style, and to NT+ this year. Each step
up in the data format brings more detail, better readability, and other
features to the various plotters that use C-Map cards. The amount of coastline
covered by a single card and the price per chart have also improved dramatically.
You can now buy a SuperWide NT+ card that will take you from Wilmington,
North Carolina, all the way down and around to Panama City, Florida, for
$299; if you don’t need that much area, there are smaller-area $99
and $199 cards. Meanwhile, a CF-85 card for Miami to Long Key still sells
for $150.
To its
credit, C-Map is currently offering a $50 discount for each CF-85 in working
condition exchanged for an NT+ card. You can get more info on the company’s
various trade-in programs and coverage areas, and also a list of compatible
plotters, at www.c-map.com.
In short,
plotters and chart cards have evolved at a pace similar to that of personal
computers, with the result that older gear has very little value. Sorry
to trash a plotter you just acquired with a used boat, but I really think
you’ll regret trying to keep it alive. Thankfully, old boats are
a completely different matter.
Got
a marine electronics question? Write to Electronics Q&A, Power
& Motoryacht, 260 Madison Ave., 8th Fl., New York, NY 10016. Fax:
(917) 256-2282. e-mail: PMYElectronics@primediamags.com.
No phone calls please.
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