# Please help! Echomap 64 says I was fishing on land...



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

It’s the coastal waters edition, not the lakes.

I was disappointed in the maps. I wonder if that was even the G2 Clear Vu maps on it.


----------



## Mike C (Feb 27, 2017)

Had a Helix 7 that was great on fresh water and sucked while on salt water. 
The side imaging was great though. 
I now have a Simrad go7 and it's way more accurate and repeatable


----------



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

This area is the main place I fish. If this is what I get, then it's useless and it will piss me off. Four to five hundred bucks to watch my boat cursor move around on land? I went online to Garmin but there are no software updates available for it, it seems. I just downloaded Garmin Express and will try that route.


----------



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

I suspect that these islands have undergone significant changes over the last 10 years as a result from tropical storms and hurricanes but if I buy a *new* chartplotter with highly-touted Garmin bluchart maps, then I'd expect _*relatively current*_ charts!

The program I'm supposed to install to update my charts won't install on my PC. I'll have to try it with a laptop.


----------



## Mike C (Feb 27, 2017)

Send it back and upgrade to a Lowrance or Simrad and you'll be fine. This also opens up the option of using Florida marine tracks


----------



## Egrets Landing (Feb 11, 2016)

hawkman said:


> so, I got my Garmin Echomap 64cv installed and on the water. Had a few user-related issues, but also noticed that when I was navigating near shore, the gps usually had me ON land. Not good! I have not tried to updat the device software yet. Do you think that will help, or do I have to update the charts, too?
> .



There is no fix for this other than to lose the machine. Your experience just reinforces what most Garmin inshore boaters realize too late. The map is much more important than the machine running it. You can have the best machine ever made with the most capabilities but if it runs a bad map, its nearly useless. Based on the commentary over many years on numerous blogs by thousands of boaters regarding garmin maps, its very clear, their cartography is the worst you can get and if you don't like it you are totally up the creek with no paddle because they provide zero alternative mapping options and they believe that works the best for every one and double down on the policy every year. Didn't you read the hundreds of blogs complaining about "my garmin shows me on land?" They bought navionics and don't even provide that as an option for you. Take the machine back and get anything else but a Garmin. If not, there is no adjustment in your unit for it and no other map they provide that will fix the problems. And if you call them to complain, expect to be disappointed because they tow the company line and will admit to nothing except they make the best map you can get and have never heard any complaints about it.


----------



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

"Egrets Landing said:


> "Didn't you read the hundreds of blogs complaining about "my garmin shows me on land?"


Hey Egret, Thanks for the response. I only quoted this part so I could specifically answer it. I did _not_ read any such post b/c I didn't think to search for whether a certain unit showed you on land or not and I never came across it.

I started off in the Humminbird camp looking around. I felt I could get the biggest screen for the money. THen I started reading posts about how there were lots of issues with the power buttons failing. It was like all of a sudden I couldn't stop reading about such a problem whereas in the month prior, I hadn't come across the complaint. I couldn't get what I wanted in the Lowrance without going up significantly in money and I was tired of shopping. A friend had gotten a Garmin and said he loved it. I don't know if I posted here or just on THT, but I asked about Garmin (I think).

While I had heard that Garmin's acquisition of Navionics was not intended to change their own maps, I can't imagine why they wouldn't utilize Navi's maps in their Garmin units!

This announcement here seems to indicate that they will, although it's not clear.
https://www.navionics.com/usa/blog/post/garmin-acquires-navionics/


----------



## Egrets Landing (Feb 11, 2016)

There are a lot of threads I have seen over the years on different sites with a title something like - my garmin shows me on land. You are one of thousands of people that found themselves in this same disappointing place. Don't hold your breath waiting or expect to be impressed by Navionics either if one day they do make it compatible. It's a little better than what you have and would be an improvement but nothing really significant and you may find yourself unhappy with that too. There are plenty of similar complaints about that out there. If you think you are going to be happy with it if you wait and get lucky, watch this video which shows their premier map in action compared to FMT side by side in a bunch of places and you can see what I am talking about. About 50 to 60 mins in it shows the huge lack of detail and accuracy and missing features in the everglades as one example.


----------



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

Egrets Landing said:


> compared to FMT side by side in a bunch of places and you can see what I am talking about.


So, is FMT a third-party provider of maps/imagery for Lowrance and Simrad, and only for Florida waters? 
-----------
Being a GIS guy, this whole thing bothers me even more. If I could edit the boundaries myself, I would. Give me a shapefile of the land/islands, and I'll edit them myself by comparing to Google imagery. 

Btw, I mentioned the island changing shape b/c of storms, but after going to Google _Earth_, not just Google Maps, and cycling through years of imagery, it appears there hasn't been much change - certainly not enough to cause what I've experienced...

Given this is a small flats boat I have, one that I'm not likely to take out into the open Pamlico much or out an inlet, I probably should've just bought a smaller, vertical, less-expensive plotter/depthfinder. We'll see. (I bought this thing at least two months ago but only got it installed and used once in the last week. I don't know if I could return it).

The promises and features described in this unit must be a complete lie if it can't truly place me in the right spot.


----------



## Egrets Landing (Feb 11, 2016)

FMT is an ISLA company (3rd party) and makes charts that run on the Navico product line. The charts currently cover FL and LA and they also have a 3d super hi res Multibeam sonar product being released this month which covers many inshore areas and offshore areas covering the entire Gulf and Atlantic up to Canada, Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Other gulf coast states are too follow including the Carolinas.

There is no way you are going to be able to edit any chart that will run in the Garmin. There is no option for that. But if you want to make your own base map and appoint it with whatever data you want you can get a Navico unit and get some tools from them that will allow you to do it. Its not easy to do and although obviously very possible, extremely time consuming and not worth the effort if you just intend to make a map for yourself.

When I saw your post about the Garmin thing weeks ago when you were shopping and I knew then you would be the next person to be pissed about their bad charts and would be posting just as you did looking for a fix. Many people ignore the warnings from others that already went down that wrong creek thinking a chart is a chart and they are all pretty much the same and it's just different opinions. If you ignored the warnings sorry but you are out of luck. Sell it on ebay and move on. Navico provides the most mapping options of all of the mfg. Get one of those (except a really cheap one like a Hook) and you should be good going forward. Shop the maps first, then choose a unit that will run the one you like. At each price point, the units at all mfg. are all about the same.

ISLA will convert hundreds of Garmin users just this year who hate their Garmin maps. They sell it all and get all new stuff just to get a map that actually works. And most call Garmin to complain too because they are pissed. But the complaint typically gets zero acknowledgement at Garmin regarding any map deficiencies so if you call them expect the same.


----------



## SomaliPirate (Feb 5, 2016)

Sounds to me like you can be the first person on this site to legitimately brag about your skiff having a 0" draft though!


----------



## hawkman (May 19, 2018)

Went out today and didn't worry about it!

*Intended to check the GPS settings and forgot to do so.


----------

