MacENC navigation software

Misneach · #1 08-30-2006

Does anyone have any experience with this software? I'm currently using Mapsource from Garmin with Blue Chart but my home computer is a Mac and I have to lug the GPS to my office where a windows machine is available. Taking the Mac laptop to the boat would be a lot more convenient but I tried the macENC demo last night on my Powerbook and it seemed both clunky and slow, the maps didn't seem to pass from one to another very eaily and it seemed in general, not quite complete. Thanks to anyone who's used this software.

sailingdog · #2 08-30-2006

I haven't used MacENC, but I do know that Garmin is supposed to be releasing Macintosh-based software later this year. There are some other good Mac GPS software packages, like MacGPS Pro.

It would help if you said what you're trying to do with the Garmin and your Mac. Are you just trying to transfer waypoints, routes and such back and forth. Or are you trying to use software to download maps and such to it.

BTW, it would help if you said what GPS unit you had. I use the 76CS and several others.

paulmcquillan · #3 08-30-2006

Antoher choice is GPSNavX (uses the free bitmap charts from the gov). It's been out for some time & may be a more mature product. It's from the same company as MacENC (which uses raster charts)

I use GPSNavX to run course charts for local races, and route planning. Haven't bothered with uploading into my onboard chart plotter.

GPSNavX · #4 09-13-2006

A few things about MacENC. MacENC is designed to work with the NOAA ENCs vector charts. It does also support displaying of NOAA RNC raster charts.

I recommend installing ALL of the NOAA ENCs first following these steps..

Get Started with MacENC

Make sure your Mac is at least a G4 1.25 GHZ, has 512MB or more of main memory and is running OS X 10.7. Of course MacENC runs great on the newer Intel based Macs as they are 5X faster than the older G4 models.