Marine Electronics Forum - HDS8 Navigation

Can someone explain if its possible to have the navigation follow your current position and how to do it? If I "GOTO" a waypoint, the track shows it as a crow flies from where I chose the waypoint. As I am traveling towards that waypoint, the track doesnt follow my current position and I have to scroll and zoom to find the waypoint. Doesnt make any sense as I need the zoomed in detail while I am underway to negotiate islands, bars etc... All of my previous nav units did it, but I cant figure out how to make this one do it.

Hit exit to toggle between current location and a location picked with the cursor.

Until I can try that out, will it update the track to my current position or will it still show my original location? Hard to believe that these units wont do this function.

I have no idea what your asking.

I have HDS7 - when I am going to a waypoint my screen shows my current location, if you move the cursor you can return to your location by hitting exit.

In the image, the track does not change as I follow my route. It always is from the position where I started to the waypoint. I know I could create a route but I would have to make hundreds of them as I rarely go between the same two points. I am not trying to be confusing, I just cant seem to explain it properly.

I think you are saying this - When the HDS is set to go to a way point the course is a straight line. However it is not always possible to travel in said straight line due to hazards or what ever. once you leave the course to avoid land, rocks or whatever you are "off course" from the line on the screen.... You now want the line to adjust to your current position so that you can follow it again. Right?

If this is what you want you are SOL.... That is a route and just goto a way-point wont do that.

Maybe we need to clear up some terminology. Then again, maybe I will just confuse things, sorry if I do.

To me, track is the path on the screen of where I've been. It's always there, whether I am navigating to a waypoint, following a route, or just drifting. If I am just drifting, there will be a track as I move with the current.

Now, you are at point A, and you pick waypoint X, and ask to GOTO to waypoint X. NOW, there is another line drawn on the screen with some shading to the side showing the straight path from where you currently are TO that way point. Let's call that the "path". For me, the path never changes once I've asked to GOTO somewhere.

It sounds to me like you pick a waypoint, the path is drawn, but now, along that path there are sandbars, islands, etc that require you to navigate off the path and in doing so, you are loosing site of where your path was.

Is that your issue? If so, what exactly are you asking? That the system constantly keep recalculating the path from where ever you happen to be?

You need to buy the Garmin with Bluechip map I think its called. It is the only unit that does this. I think you program your draft and clearance it does the rest...

Yes - track is where you have been not where you are going. Route or Path is where you are going course is the direction you are taking to get there.

Yes, that is exactly what I am wanting. I have had 4 different Lowrance/Eagle units prior to this one and they all do it. I dont expect it to show safe passage, just the nav line to my waypoint from wherever I am.

I dont think it does.....I am in the ocean 99% of the time so I normally just run a straight line to the inlet...so I dont have the issue.... I think you want to "recalculate" the path to the waypoint.... the issue on the pic is that it will still take you across land would be my guess. I will have to play with it this weekend and test.

Yes, that is exactly what I am wanting. I have had 4 different Lowrance/Eagle units prior to this one and they all do it. I dont expect it to show safe passage, just the nav line to my waypoint from wherever I am.

Wouldn't that be a straight line?

Wouldn't that be a straight line?

he wants a "New" straight line from his new position. The straight line in the pic above would always be over land and you would always have the bell "off course alarm ringing"

So what your saying is when he hits goto, the unit draws a straight line from that position, and as he moves, the line no longer begins at his current position, but rather from where he started the navigation?

So what your saying is when he hits goto, the unit draws a straight line from that position, and as he moves, the line no longer begins at his current position, but rather from where he started the navigation?

I think that is the problem. I dont use my plotter inshore and off shore I just point to inlet I hardly pay attention to what it does.

If you are in a navigation screen and you want to change the course line, Hit menu then recalculate.It reset the course line fron your current position. We have a new HDS-7 on our fireboat and are training on it now. Unfortunately the manual sucks. Now if you use the steer page, the path or line won't change but the bearing to waypoint will, it always adjusts to where you are and where you are going.

I know exactly what your talking about. I have only had my HDS10 for a month or so and it bugs the hell out of me that when I press "go to" I get a nice line drawn from my current position(A) to the waypoint (B) I want to go to. Now if I have to change course for another boat or say see birds working and want to drive off course the straight line remains from A-B but I'm no where near the line any more.

If I have the chart zoomed in to much I can not even see the line between A and B anymore.

I also have a Garmin handheld GPSMAP 76Csx, when I press "goto" it shows a line from my current position (A) to waypoint (B) that I want to go to. If I change direction to look at something or avoid an obstacle. The line stays with me where ever I go and shows me where I need to aim to get to waypoint B.

Thinking about it as I right this.... it may have something to do with choosing course up, north up or chart up. Next time I'm on the boat I will test it and see if it makes any difference.

The best way to accomplish what you want is to make a route out of a track that you've saved. The plotter can't "think" it's way around obstacles, so you'll need to save a safe trail as a route and then you can follow it anytime you need to.

For example, we often head up the ICW to a restaurant that's about 10 miles away. I made a concerted effort to pilot a perfect course there on day and then saved that trail as a route. Now when we head home at night we can follow the route home and not have to use the spot light nearly as often.

As long as you can save some of your more traveled paths then you will get what you want.

Hope that helps...

Pretty sure the OP wants a line from his boat to the destination waypoint that constantly updates during the trip from point of origin to destination waypoint. I would like the same on my Ray E7, but alas think you need to recalculate to get the updated line.

I went out on the boat and did some testing. Tried the different map orientations of north up, heading up and course up. It did not make a difference, still had the red line from A to B and not Boat to waypoint B.

The closest thing I could find was to use the Steer page. It shows a compass with my current bearing and the bearing to the waypoint. Had to line the red arrow and black arrow up so I was on course for the destination.

I have to say, I "kind of" want what the OP is asking for, but there are issues with just adding constant recalculation. My recent trip to the keys kind of highlighted my dislikes with the current state of marine navigation.

In the keys, I would pick a reef, GOTO, and I'd see my A->B line. Along the way, we'd have to navigate around another reef, sandbar, etc. Since there were so many obstacles and I did not have multi-waypoint routes laid out, I was not using the steering page, I was using the chart page. And so, I have the same issue as the OP. I know I can display two pages at once and I do need to get my HDS better customized to deal with this. Anyways, by having the line A->B fixed, it wasn't that hard to figure out where I was, where I needed to go. IF, the HDS was constantly recalculating that line, I think it "might" have been harder to actually get to where I was going, since, at least for me, on the HDS chart page, it can be hard to tell which way you are aiming, depending on if you have north up, heading up, etc. There's no indication on the chart page if you are actually aiming down that line.

I think the constant recalculation would only work well if one used COURSE UP?

Basically, it would be nice if there was something that could be added to a chart screen to give me that key indicator from the steering page, which way to steer. Let me add some kind of indicator to the top center of the chart page that tells me, straight to my face, go left, go right, so that I can stop mentally trying to interpret my track, my path, and everything else to figure out where to steer. That's all I want from the steering page and I think it would be nice if there was a little steering data widget that I could place on any screen that would only display if a course was active.

Still, I don't see what's wrong with Lowrance adding a setting globally that for TO SINGLE WAYPOINT GOTO navigation, an automatic recalc is done every so often.

Question is, what about multi-waypoint routes? I would think, if one has taken the time to create a multi-waypoint route, that they really intend to follow that route, and now the debate is if one goes off course, what's better, is it best to get back on that route if off course or just recalc to the next one? Since I have a shallow draft boat, I would prefer always recalc to the next waypoint. Maybe deeper draft boats would prefer to get back to the original course quickly?

Or do others just need to add Garmin's AutoGuidance. Hopefully it's not patented, because I know I've asked for that feature since the early days of gps navigation. Maybe someday all these navigation headaches will go away and routes will be a thing of the past and marine navigation will be more like car navigation?

Google is great. I have read the HDS manual numerous times looking for an answer to this issue when I stumbled on this thread. On my old Magellan chart plotter if I just wanted to "drive" rather than follow a course, I just selected my destination waypoint and a line was continuously updated from boat's current position to destination with all data such as time to destination etc. It worked so well I guess I took it for granted. As said, frequently with the HDS-8 I don't even see the course line as I am zoomed in and have gone off course. I can't believe such useful functionality is not present. Hopefully, I missed the directions in how to do this in the manual, or will be available in an update. Until then, I have to admit I frequently pull out the 10 year old 4inch display Magellan.

Well Chimes has your answer, however as long as you are in 'GOTO' mode the chart will still only show a straight line. The GOTO feature is something that I associate with OPEN WATER cruising and should not be confused with any type of NAVIGATION. The true value to the GOTO feature is at your desk or in front of the fireplace at home. You can find an interesting place to go, create a safe route, save the route to your SD card. Then you can navigate that route from your HDS. After you have done this you can then adjust your route for quicker or safer cruising.
I have a problem with constant recalculating of this straight line in that it might instill some 'false security' in the Captain.

Edd

Google is great. I have read the HDS manual numerous times looking for an answer to this issue when I stumbled on this thread. On my old Magellan chart plotter if I just wanted to "drive" rather than follow a course, I just selected my destination waypoint and a line was continuously updated from boat's current position to destination with all data such as time to destination etc. It worked so well I guess I took it for granted. As said, frequently with the HDS-8 I don't even see the course line as I am zoomed in and have gone off course. I can't believe such useful functionality is not present. Hopefully, I missed the directions in how to do this in the manual, or will be available in an update. Until then, I have to admit I frequently pull out the 10 year old 4inch display Magellan.

I used to use an old black and white handheld garmin. When I wanted to "Go To", I would select a waypoint. It would then show me a line between where I am and the waypoint, my current direction, my time to destination, my distance to destination, etc.....all of that information was real time...distance diminished and time diminished based on my current speed. There was always a line from my CURRENT position to the waypoint so I always knew which direction I needed to be heading. This was all on an old POS handheld. I too took it for granted.....thought it was kind of a "common sense" feature.

I now have a HDS-10 and it cant even do the same thing!! I am in shock that there is no way around this. I've spent hours digging through all the menus and reading the manual.....seems like it isnt possible....and that is ridiculous IMO. When I'm going 40 miles to a buoy to catch bait, I want to know how close I am and how long I have left.....its not that effing hard.....sure, you can press a bunch of buttons and recalculate every minute or so, but there should be a function for continuous update. At least update the damn distance and ETA! I'm pretty pissed about the lack of this feature as going to waypoints is one of the main reasons I spent thousands of dollars on the damn thing. :mad:

I want to know how close I am and how long I have left.....its not that effing hard.....sure, you can press a bunch of buttons and recalculate every minute or so, but there should be a function for continuous update. At least update the damn distance and ETA! . :mad:

This info is all updated on the navigation screen...... I use it all the time on my HDS7

TDT = Time to Destination DTD distance to Destination = you can also overlay this to any of the other screens.....

This info is all updated on the navigation screen...... I use it all the time on my HDS7

TDT = Time to Destination DTD distance to Destination = you can also overlay this to any of the other screens.....

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Right you are Danny and let us not forget we also have ALARMS we can set for some things like 'destination'.

I can't count the times I have read "the manual just doesn't address this issue or that issue.", and I agree totally. You must ask questions or just get into the unit and see whats going on. You can do more today than you could 5 years ago for sure.

Edd

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: Right you are Danny and let us not forget we also have ALARMS we can set for some things like 'destination'.

I can't count the times I have read "the manual just doesn't address this issue or that issue.", and I agree totally. You must ask questions or just get into the unit and see whats going on. You can do more today than you could 5 years ago for sure.

Edd

The lowrance manuals blow nuts...better info and smarter people here with tons of knowledge... .. I have a 12V power supply at my house and when I bought my units I played with them for about 8 hours before installation.... The LWX-1 weather module did not even come with a manual... I had to download it. :thumbsup:

So I understand that the course line is drawn the moment I choose "goto" waypoint, and that the line is not updated unless I hit "recalculate". However, the data such as time and distance to go is realtime form current position. Am I right?

Like Diesel Dawg and RedfishWhisperer I am amazed that this seemingly simple and useful feature is not available. Unless I have a reason to use a course, in an area I go every weekend, with no dangers or obstructions, I like to spice it up a little and just "drive". Knowing how far I am to my destination and how long it take to get there and the heading needed to get there are amongst the most important information and the reason I spent big bucks on a chartplotter. The fault is all mine for not making sure the system could do it. Never thought it wouldn't. Next time I will have to spend alot more time on individual features and take nothing for granted. Live and learn.