How to get marine charts on Descent MK1

9019554 over 5 years ago

Hi all,

Just purchased a Garmin Descent MK1 and have been having a terrible time trying to get marine charts on it.

I have downloaded Active Captain on my iphone and purchased HXPC024R - Australia and New Zealand as it said it was compatible with the descent.

I cant get my descent to register on active captain as it is not a chartplotter and I can't find a way of transferring the map to connect or any other app.

I've downloaded Garmin Express and Homeport on my laptop but these don't seem to solve the problem either.

In express I can see the purchased map under Vessel but not the Descent.

Anyone know to to solve this?? I can't believe it is this difficult for such an expensive piece of marine gear! There doesn't seem to be much info online and a lot of the garmin web pages are down. Garmin really need to make it clearer what each of their apps/programs are for and perhaps combining them as they don't integrate very well at all!!

Top Replies

Garmin-Nate over 5 years ago +1 suggested

9019554 The program used to update and load all purchased maps to the Descent and any compatible Garmin watch is Garmin Express. Homeport/Active Captain are used for marine products such as Chart plotters…

All Replies

0 Garmin-Nate over 5 years ago

9019554 The program used to update and load all purchased maps to the Descent and any compatible Garmin watch is Garmin Express. Homeport/Active Captain are used for marine products such as Chart plotters. Purchased maps can only be downloaded to one device, since you purchased the map through active captain it seems to have been associated under marine devices.

To get the map you purchased on your Descent I suggest you call and contact your local Garmin Support. They should be able to get you the map sent to your account in Garmin Express so you can download it to your Descent. To view the map and any saved waypoints you will need to use the Garmin Basecamp program. I will include a link to this below.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/software/basecamp/

0 Volker over 5 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

Hi Nate,

but why is the descent listed as a compatible device for active captain??? So the customer is misled...

0 atj777 over 5 years ago in reply to Volker

Volker said:
but why is the descent listed as a compatible device for active captain??? So the customer is misled...

I don't believe it was. The Descent was listed as compatible with BlueChart G2 HD map not ActiveCaptain.

i.e. you can put BlueChart G2 HD on the Descent (via Garmin Express) or you can put it on a marine device via ActiveCaptain.

0 Volker over 5 years ago in reply to atj777

Ah, my bad. I thought it was the list of compatible devices, but it is the list for the blue chart g2 maps.