[PUP] Nobeltec dongles

[Scott E. Bulger]

3 years ago I gave up on Nobeltec after using their application for about 4
years.  I had VNS and Admiral, with and without Dongles.  I also had their
1st generation RADAR and their upgraded 2nd generation technology (Ethernet
rather than USB).  In summary:

 

a.        VNS is (was) a complex set of code that had been added to over
time, making it less and less stable, with too many features that were put
in for marketing hype

b.      While I find the people at Nobeltec to be really good folks, they
are stuck having to deliver profit to a larger corporation (Boeing) and
securing their revenue in the charting space is a CRITICAL revenue stream to
protect, therefore the dongles are a necessity.  Given the opportunity, far
too many people will copy and steal charts rather than buy them.  

c.       If I had a large investment in charts and their new application was
meeting my needs, or if I had headed down the RADAR path with them, I'd
probably stay with the application and deal with the dongle issue.  As
suggested, I put a USB extension cable on the laptop and put the dongle at
the end of that.  A dongle is no more likely to fail than any other part of
the laptop, your power cable is just as likely to cause problems as the USB
cable.  Deal with it.  If your laptop is your navigation tool, it should be
very securely installed

 

Having said this, I switched to Rosepoint Navigation's Coastal Explorer.  I
have found:

a.        The application meets all my needs, but they never brought their
RADAR product to market, in spite of talking about it for some time.  I
think they just couldn't justify the costs in adding it and supporting it
for the small number of customers that would invest in it.  

b.      In 1,600 hours of operation (the application is running if the boat
motor is running) it has crashed twice.  Each crash resulted in no data lost
or problem other than restarting the application.  I consider this level of
reliability good.  It is easy to use, does everything I need it to do, and
overall I'd rate my satisfaction as a 4.5 out of 5.

c.       I believe I purchased Maptech charts for Mexico, Central America
and the Caribbean.  I think I paid about $500 for that content, and then
used the ENC's from NOAA for the US.  I find both the vector and raster
charts to be great.  I'd like more control over the fonts in vector charts,
but it's no big deal to zoom in and out to read locations when necessary.
Oh, I just remembered, if I had to purchase that content from Nobeltec I
think it would have cost me about $3,500.  

d.      Again, the folks at Rosepoint are great guys, they tend to be
optimistic in quoting delivery dates and features, but over time they have
delivered most of what they  have promised.

 

In summary, my boat (Alanui, Nordhavn 40) has two charting systems, PC based
and Furuno.  I'm a strong believer in redundancy and enjoy using a pc based
system for planning and an appliance system for primary navigation needs.
If long distance passages are the goal I would implement a system as I've
described, but for near coastal cruising I'd have to vote at this point for
an appliance because you can't get Radar from anyone other than Nobeltec,
and I've decided not to use their application in the future.  I hope that
makes sense.  

 

Scott Bulger, Alanui, N40II, Seattle WA