Garmin Map Coverage

sb in gp

Active Member
Oct 10, 2006
858
Grosse Pointe, MI
Boat Info
2016 Tiara 50 Coupe
Engines
Volvo D11 IPS
I recently purchased a 535S and the Mapsource Inland Lakes DVD from Jim at BOE and I noticed some issues that I wanted to see if anyone else has noticed.

I just got back from a trip to Cedar Point over the 4th of July weekend. My trip takes me along the US/Canada border, as I go down the Detroit River and then across Lake Erie. On the GPS I noticed that when I cross slightly into Canadian waters sometimes I lose the topography. All of the land and water just disappears and I get a blotchy pixelated screen. When I cross back onto the US side it normally returns to a normal map (not always right away). Can anyone explain this behavior? Do I have the wrong GPS model?

I also noticed in Lake Erie that the maps show very little detail on both the GPS and Mapsource DVD. In Lake St. Clair I see depth and in Lake Erie I don't. This is annoying because around Cedar Point there are some pretty confusing markers and some shallow water to beware of. Any ideas? Does Garmin just not have good coverage in Lake Erie?

Thanks,

Scott
 
I had a Garmin 176C with the data card for the Eastern basin of lake Erie it was incrediblly detailed w/ depths, shoals, nav markers and much more. I never had spotty data or loss of images but that was a different unit. you know those Canadians though:grin:
 
I have a 545s and vision card sitting in the kitchen (I've been too lazy to get it installed, but it should be done this week). I'm not 100% certain of any of this, so use at your own risk, but I'm pretty certain Garmin doesn't have the resources to map all the water of the world, so I don't think they're to blame, well, not completely.

I used to think everyone carried all the applicable paper charts at various detail levels for where ever they were cruising (yes, I was naive). But you'll notice that NOAA maps different areas with different levels of detail. You can buy fairly rough charts and you can buy very detailed charts of particular areas, in my case, the channels and lakes that run from the locks to the sound, inland, a really detailed chart.

When I looked at what vision card to buy, I noticed that Garmin listed the NOAA chart numbers for each card. In my case, there was pretty much the whole west coast and then there was a card dedicated to just the local sound. Yep, that one had all the detailed charts.

As there's only so much space in the memory they provide in the unit, as well as on a card, I suspect the larger the area, the less the detail. I don't think NOAA provides data for Canada, so if Garmin uses the NOAA data, it's going to be pretty crude for what you get.

I think your next issue is how long it takes the unit to decide to build its world once you cross back into the US... I know if I were programming the thing (I'm an engineer, not a programmer) I would probably break areas into squares or hexagons, interpolate the data for the area and present it. If these overlap the boarders, they might not get their flag reset until you're "out of the box!"

Don't worry... if Moore's Law keeps going, we'll have such huge, cheap memory someday that it will only cost pennies to have every chart in the world encoded on the unit's silicon... and that which it doesn't have I'm sure will be instantly downloaded from the sat link to the net.
 
I believe that I found the problem. I bought the wrong unit. I bought the 535S thinking that Lake Erie and Huron were "inland" lakes. Apparently Garmin has those lakes on the 545S as "Coastal". Garmin's Website is very confusing in this area in my opinion. I'm working with BOE Jim and Garmin to try to swap the unit. No luck so far.
 
You need the BlueChart maps. I have the Inland Lakes Maps as well but they don't have any detail for the great lakes. You need BlueChart Americas 2008...I think. Thats what I have on my handheld...or trade the unit in for the Coastal version.
 
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Does anyone else feel that like me, the way Garmin markets their marine products is very confusing? Especially the map coverage.

Figuring out the difference between the base on-board map coverage, and the Bluechart coverage and the Mapsource software coverage is not well defined. They need a page that explains all their products and how they work together in better detail.

I think I now have it figured out, but not before buying the wrong GPS and the wrong Mapsource pkg. Done venting.
 
Just a follow up on my problem here in ordering the wrong Garmin unit...

Jim from BOE worked it out the Garmin to swap the 535s for a 545s. I have to say that this is an example of great customer service. Jim went out of his way for me and doesn't know me from Adam.

IMHO: Anyone thinking of buying their electronics from Ebay to save $10 (Jim has great prices) is making a mistake. You are going to miss working with a class organization that stands behind their products.
 

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