| Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Maine
Posts: 11
|  Raymarine C-series tracks/routes
Along with my own questions, I've seen a few people on here ask about the C series track/route features when it comes to the chartplotter. For me, that is the #1 feature of the chartplotter/GPS - when I'm 100 miles from the dock, show me how I got there and where I went so I can get back home and chow on the 40 inch striper I just bagged.
Anyway, I find Raymarine's customer service to be about as enthusiastic as the kid at my local McDonalds drive-through. I did however talk to a local Raymarine tech support guy in NH who wrote me the most thorough email I've had yet regarding tracks/routes and how they work.
Most of you C-series owners probably know all this - but for me (new unit installing tomorrow) and others who aren't as familiar, I thought I'd post the email as it helped me out a great deal. Check this out, and sorry for the bandwidth:
Hi,
Port Harbour Marine forwarded your questions about the C-120's tracking and route making to us in Technical Support.*
To answer your first question, the track function actually works quite well, (it is actually somewhat ground-breaking) but, it does work differently than anything we (or anyone else) has had in the past, and for that reason, some people don't like it, let me elaborate.*
The way any C-Series lays a track is that based upon the boat's speed over ground (SOG), the unit is constantly dropping trackpoints (the faster you go, the more frequently it drops a point, as you slow down, so does its interval), and basically examines the previous 3 trackpoints, we'll call them, A, B, and C, for this.* If the unit compares all three and shows no significant heading changed required to get from A to B to C, it will then automatically drop point B from the track (as it is not necessary), and then looks at the next point in line, we'll call that one point D in an A-C-D comparison.* If there is no major change in progressing through the 3, trackpoint C is dropped, and the unit would then compare A-D-E, etc..* If, however, there was a change in going through A to C to D, all 3 would become permanent trackpoints on the track, and then the next "running" comparison would be between points*C, D, and E.
We went for this "smart" tracking (and are the first to do so)*because, traditionally, you had to set the track interval based upon either a time interval or a distance interval.* This always lead to some form of compromise and some judgment calls about how to best drop a track that was accurate enough to re-trace, but did not exhaust the track storage capacity (in recent years, its typically been 500 to 1,000 waypoints per track, the C-Series is 1,000).* It became difficult for someone who had both slow (i.e. no wake zone) portions of a common trip, then had more traditional cruising speed portions of the same trip, because they either*did not have enough trackpoints to make a decent sized trip (having probably burned half to two thirds when they didn't need to) or not a terribly accurate track because they extended the interval be it via time or distance to stretch the library, but the interval may have placed points on either side of something that had, in fact, been dodged.*
Some people though, we have found, still want the control this themselves, and without that control, irregardless as to how well it actually works, feels the unit is somehow deficient for not allowing the end user the ability to make a bad choice.* We will probably work a user selectable track interval*as an option (the unit will still default to the autotrack) in a future rev of software, but I would not expect it before this winter.*Unless you want really defined track over a small area, like a troll over a wreck for fishing, I don't see a user selectable interval outperforming the auto interval, but it will be an option again in the future.*
As far as the routes, converting a track to a route is always less accurate than marking the important points where a mark has to be laid to successfully be used as a waypoint and then creating the route waypoint to waypoint.* Think of the previously stated track making, and say the unit eventually dropped 500 trackpoints to make the track.* If you convert that into a route, because an individual route is limited to 50 waypoints, the plotter has to pick among those 500 trackpoints which 50 can be waypoints.* As you can imagine, that running A-B-C comparison and the required change to now justify burning a waypoint is going to be much larger now, and what is sacrificed is the resolution to the original track.* For longer, more intricate trips, it is going to be necessary for 2 or more routes to comprise the trip if more than 50 legs are needed, whether the route be from a converted track or entered via waypoints directly.*
There may, eventually, be an extension of the amount of waypoints available per route, but that is easier said than done, as there*could be*interfacing implications with things like autopilots (especially not our own), that make a change like this somewhat of a backward step if two pieces that previously talked fine with one another now don't for something that was a convenience and not a necessity.* We actually support 15 more waypoints per route than Northstar's closest comparable product line, their 6000i*(they only allow 35 waypoints per route), and our tracks are 300 trackpoints longer than Garmin's closest comparable units, their 3006/3010 series (they only allow 700 trackpoints per track), and neither the garmin nor the Northstar, at least in their specs, directly states that they can convert a current track into a route at all, but that may just be an omission from their web page write ups.
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If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
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Regards,
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I sure hope they make some of the updates they claim. 
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