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Originally Posted by MikeTheRock
It is worth noting that for current Lowrance and Simrad units running new software you can get the Navionics SonarCharts Live to work just fine while on the water and view the live mapping etc. on the unit's display, but you CANNOT upload the resulting data/log file from your Navionics card to the Navionics server. This has something to do with how the new Navico (Lowrance/Simrad) units are exporting data to a .GPX file.
I've been on the phone with both Navionics and Simrad for hours and this recent change has basically made the Navionics SonarChart Live feature useless for me since I want to be able to record for a large number of days in an area where I have no cell service or internet access. My plotter is telling me I only have room for +/- four days of live mapping, and it is a brand new card. I'll see about some of the solutions noted above to try and extend that.
Unless you use Reefmaster or some other workaround there isn't a way that I am aware of to integrate the live sonar log data into the permanent Navionics map.
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This is news to me, but I haven't tried it yet myself, I don't generally want to upload my Sonarcharts data to Navionics. The recent acquisition of Navionics by Garmin might be the driving factor behind this, but that wouldn't make sense to me really. Why wouldn't Navionics/Garmin want the data from 1000's of Lowrance users making their mapping product better? Maybe it's Lowrance who doesn't want their users improving the quality of the competitors maps? Strange, seems like either way, you're only hurting your own customers. I'll see what I can find out about it.
The live mapping feature of SonarCharts Live will work without internet access/cell service. As it's building the map in real time, your unit is saving the data to the Navionics+ SD card. The actual file size for the SonarCharts live data is very small, so I can't see how that could possibly fill up an SD card, there should be room for a lifetime of maps on your card. Make sure you're recording the files to the SD card and not to the sonar unit's internal memory.
As for recording the actual sonar data, I'm not sure how the Navionics mapping data upload works, but I thought it was based on the SonarCharts Live files, not on recorded sonar log data. If you want to record the sonar data, and it's a good idea in my opinion, bring along a couple extra SD cards, and only record the .slg file to minimize file size. If you've got dual card slots, that's a breeze, it you only have a single card slot on your sonar unit, you'll have to do some cutting and pasting of the sonar files to manage them, either using the sonar's internal memory (keep the file sizes small, less than about 300 MB) or use a computer or Android cell phone that can use the micro SD card. Once you have the sonar logs recorded, you can upload them to CMAP Genesis, Reefmaster, or potentially to Navionics once you're back and have internet access.
The key point here is that SonarCharts Live and recording the actual sonar data are two completely different things, and you don't need one to make the other work.