Overwhelmed by all those functions on your GPS or chart plotter? Want to use your tablet or smartphone to help you navigate on your boat? Interested in using a desktop computer program to plan your cruise and then copy that information to your GPS? This course covers the topics you need and want to know.
What's Included?
- Navigating by establishing waypoints and routes
- Running the planned courses
- Electronic charting software for the desktop computer
- Tablet and smartphone apps that provide the electronic navigation function at the helm
- Hands-on exercises on a PC that simulates GPS functions
- Using charting software and a chart plotter emulator
- Overview of the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
This course is completed in eight two-hour sessions, followed by an exam.
Electronic Navigation introduces GPS technology from the most basic receiver to chart plotter systems for navigation on board. The process of navigating by establishing waypoints and routes, and then running the planned courses, is demonstrated. Further, electronic charting software for the desktop computer is examined, with creation of waypoints and routes on the desktop and subsequent download to the onboard unit. Despite differences among the various manufacturers' offerings, a thorough discussion of the features being made available is included.
Special attention is paid to apps for tablets and smartphones that provide the electronic navigation function at the helm, for relatively little cost.
Students should be familiar with basic charting concepts such as latitude, longitude, the compass, course plotting, and time/distance calculation, to get the most out of the course.
The student materials include a soft-bound course text and a Windows-compatible CD for electronic content. The course menu provides all the class presentation PowerPoints, an interactive homework tool, hands-on exercises on the PC that simulate GPS function, as well as the Maptech Chart Navigator software and a chart plotter emulator from Standard Horizon.
This course omits Radar and Depth Sonar technologies, however Appendix 8 of the course text on Automatic Identification System (AIS) is presented and made part of the examinable material for USPS course credit.
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