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Canadian maps

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 10:16 pm
by Ken
I'm new to MGL forum as well as MGL products. I'm situated in Ontario Canada and am looking for Canadian maps for my G3 touch screen. I have never downloaded anything into my EFIS yet and am a little hesitant. I'm looking for Canadian maps ( Ontario is priority ) and directions where and how to install into my EFIS. Thanks Ken

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 5:39 pm
by colin
I'm in Brockville on. I just bought an EFIS Lite . It was shipped with Southern Canada maps but no airport info. Let me know if you were able to get the data for southern Canada .

Thanks

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2021 12:03 am
by Ken
Hi Colin
Im in Cambridge and my EFIS to best of my knowledge there is no maps installed in my EFIS touch. I have it installed but aircraft is not ready to fly yet. I have played around with it a bit but says no raster maps available. I have contacted Jeppensen and after a considerable amount of time with them they said the Nav download for all of Canada would work. (174.00) per year. It has airports SIds STARS VOR. I only fly VFR so that stuff is not really needed. So far I like the EFIS but a little dissapointed that these manufactures seem to forget that Canada exists.

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2021 8:47 am
by rainier
The EFIS supports two simultaneous map systems: Vector maps and Raster maps.

Vector maps
---------------
This is a map that is created by the EFIS based on the terrain data, Cultural data (towns, cities, roads, railway lines etc) and Aeronautical data.
On the G3 iEFIS terrain data is installed that covers the globe. The pre-installed VMAP.EVD file in your maps folder contains cultural data for the World.
That leaves Aeronautical data: This changes very often and for most parts of the World is copyrighted. You need a subscription product or if you are lucky it is available for free (For example the FAA makes data available you can download from this forum - converted for us by one of our longest standing supporters).

Subscription products that can provide the Navidata.ewd file we can use are from Jeppesen and PocketFMS plus some regional suppliers (nothing from Canada that I am aware of).
PocketFMS is a low cost subscription that provides you with a single file covering the globe - this works well with our systems.

Navidata provides information on airports, navigation, waypoints such as reporting points and airspaces.

If you select a map on your screen as "vector map" the EFIS draws the map based on the above data. Note that in the map menu you also switch map layers and select the items you want to see for every zoom level - so you can declutter the map as you prefer.

Raster Maps
---------------
These are maps converted from official aeronautical maps (scanned paper maps or equivalent digital images). For the U.S. these are again a free download for our systems, again provided by our ever enthusiastic supporters.
These maps tend to be copyright in many parts of the World so we cannot convert these for you - however you are allowed to convert them yourself if you have purchased them for your own use.
For this purpose we made the Mapmaker 2 application you can download from our website - this tool is used to convert the maps into something the EFIS can use and also, very importantly, georeference the maps.

It is possible to tell the system to draw the navidata from the vector maps over the raster map - that leads effectively to a third way of using maps - use Mapmaker2 to convert a non-aeronautical map (such as a normal atlas kind of map) and then simply draw the aeronautical stuff over it.

Each screen on your EFIS may have one map field - you can select this to be a raster map or vector map and you can have both at the same time on different screens (so a map selection or setting is private to that screen).

In all cases, contact your local MGL distributor if you want to inquire about pre-made maps. For example you can get them from Delta-Omega for Europe - you have to pay a small amount as the originators of the maps have to be paid for every copy made.

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2021 11:13 am
by Ken
Thanks Rainer
I will spend a bit more time getting familiar with the product. Thanks for the input
Ken

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2021 4:14 pm
by colin
Hi Ken, I lived at 9 Lansdown in Galt for 20 years , my sister lives on Oak st .
I have a G2 unit as well on my RV7. I did load it with Pocket data originally . I stopped updating it years ago. I only fly locally and between Brockville and Wiarton .Nothing has moved. I use foreflight to check for Notams and any frequency changes which there have been none where I fly. So I might try a one time download of Pocket Data on the EFIF lite . With the G2 Odyssey every time I uploaded anything I had surprise changes on screens that I did not want. Let me know if you find a solution. It does piss me off that we were left off . I'm 10kms from the US border and when I press nearest airports I get all the little airports south of the boarder.

Hi Colin
Im in Cambridge and my EFIS to best of my knowledge there is no maps installed in my EFIS touch. I have it installed but aircraft is not ready to fly yet. I have played around with it a bit but says no raster maps available. I have contacted Jeppensen and after a considerable amount of time with them they said the Nav download for all of Canada would work. (174.00) per year. It has airports SIds STARS VOR. I only fly VFR so that stuff is not really needed. So far I like the EFIS but a little dissapointed that these manufactures seem to forget that Canada exists.
[/quote]

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:28 pm
by raystl
I installed an Enigma in my previous plane that I flew across North America. I used Pocketfms data as well as for about 25% more got its associated Easyvfr on an Android as a backup nav tool. I also used (free) Fltplan on the Android to hold all CFS plus its US equivalent data. Worked well. I normally kept Enigma as track up and Easyvfr as North up. Easyvfr has a nifty feature that shows left or right circuit circuits. If you have a tiny airsrip that you want included let them know and they will do it.

Backup nav story. For multi day trips normally have the entire multiday route loaded on the Enigma. While in Florida I pushed the SD card too hard into the mgl. It jammed in an unreadablel position. No map. But the route was still there. So I flew back home to New Brunswick with the route on a blank background on the mgl and Easyvfr still showing my the moving map and airspace info.

My new plane will also have mgl with Easyvfr.

--Ray

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 2:14 pm
by colin
I tried to download the Navida file from my other plane but it wont let me . I'm going to download the Pocket FMS data . I think its $119USF. I haven't updated my RV info in 8 years, frankly none of the airports I fly to have moved and the frequencies haven't changed although I check on Foreflight. So I'll down load it now and you can update as many times as you want in a years subscription.

Colin

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:39 pm
by raystl
Often what I use to determine when to get new PocketFms is to keep up with new obstacles, particularly wind turbines.

--ray

Re: Canadian maps

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:20 pm
by triguy
Has there been any more efforts by anyone to secure Cabadian vfr charts for G3 mgl efis instrumentation? I was able to do it by a couple of methods with mapmaker 2 and map scanning but tones of work.