QLD
85 posts
I have been looking at getting a portable sonar scanner to update my plotter with more accurate depths, There has been a thread here on a T Box sonar that links in with Navionics and looks useful.
I am also a VMR skipper and have just been involved in a 12 day Search and rescue and have spent many hours/days going up and down the coast and in all the creeks. It would have been good to have it then.
I don't have navionics neither does VMR (C-map on a Furuno plotter) and every one else who uses round hill creek has probably got a different system as well
My query is can the sonar data be open sourced so everyone can get hold of it or will it be only good for navionics, has anyone used a sonar scanner and can give some feedback on it.
TAS
825 posts
Hi Andy, I don't know about the open sourcing of the data. I looked after a friends old farr 40 over last year, its sonar was broken so I bought a Tbox / sonar sensor and used it in conjunction with navionics running on an my ipad (or android). The system has a lot of potential to vastly improve charts as the data is uploaded to a server when you're back on wifi and that is processed and used to update the base navionics charts. The sonar tracks that you produce stay on the Ipad so you can see what you've scanned at any time, but I'm not sure if you can directly share the sonar plots between individuals. It's probably worth a chat with the navionics guys though. If enough people join in and use the system it has the potential for producing much more accurate charts overall. This kind of mobile device app system linked to a Tbox/sonar means that you'll at least have an IOS or Android device as a backup tool on any boat/search.
