Using the MOB feature

Problems and Support
1

Coastal Explorer is both fabulous and frustrating.

Is there a detailed user manual? I can’t find one on the website.
The best I can turn up is “Exploring Coastal Explorer 4” which is pretty superficial.

Today’s feature I am working on understanding - the MOB feature.

By trial and error, I figure out that a quick tap on the MOB icon drops a ring-buoy mark on the chart.

So far so good. But is there more to the MOB feature that that?

I was expecting the MOB feature to include a route back to the icon. But, it just drops the marker and nothing else? No route guidance. No distance to go. Nothing else?

Am I missing something?

Is there documentation somewhere that is more complete than the “Exploring Coastal Explorer 4” document from 2017?

2

The manual is built into the program, use the search button to look. you can also hit F1 key to open the manual.
When I hit MOB, it drops the ring and sets it as an active waypoint where the boat is right that moment. Perhaps you need to move the boat off of that spot to see the navigate to waypoint working. If you are at your dock, you can move the boat off the spot by right clicking on the chart somewhere else and click Move boat here, caution that you now be in ded reckoning mode and the program will no longer use your GPS to place your boat on the chart.

3

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4

If you have a data box set up for DTG data, you will see distance to waypoint and BRG will give you Bearing to waypoint.

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5

I’ve tried the built-in help. To my way of thinking, the built in help is a far cry from a user manual, and covers only some features and then often only vaguely.

Here the built in help appears to have nothing about the MOB function. Searching on “overboard” returns nothing. Search on “over-board” shows that F4 is the keyboard shortcut for MOB. And, searching on “MOB” only returns a note about one of the program updates. Nothing about how the MOB feature is supposed to work.

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6

That is not the action I saw this afternoon, when I was out on my boat in the bay playing with this. (not stationary at the dock)

I tap the MOB button, and it drops the life-ring. But does not appear to set it as an active waypoint.

But, on my laptop at home - it does work. I’ll have to figure why the CE on the boat PC and CE on my laptop are behaving differently.

Thanks for the tip about setting up DTG & BRG. I hadn’t thought about that.

7

In my experiments on the water this afternoon, I never got the course line to the MOB mark.

Wondering if I have some option turned off by accident.

8

The MOB is an “event”, look up “using marks, annotations and events” in the manual.

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9

you can always right click on the mark and select “activate waypoint” if it doesn’t do it on it’s own. It comes up with a bearing line every time for me when I hit MOB. I don’t know of any place to change that function.

10

There is also a youtube channel with tutorials but I find that it is for beginners to the software. If you have a specific question that you need answered, the RPCE guys are great with phone support, and they actually answer the phone live, and speak english.

11

I’m familiar with the RosePoint youtube videos. I looked - and don’t see any of their Youtube videos that cover the MOB feature.

I agree they are pretty decent. But, not a replacement for an actual user manual.

12

go see their ECS version of Coastal Explorer - common functionality with a more detailed manual
[https://www.rosepoint.com/support/rose-point-ecs-4/Rose Point ECS 4 Reference.pdf](https://www.rosepoint.com/support/rose-point-ecs-4/Rose Point ECS 4 Reference.pdf)

not sure why link did not work, but google or find the ECS manual for Coastal Explorer commercial version

13

I have the ECS manual. It does not mention MOB at all, other than to explain that MOB stands for man-over-board and to show that F4 is a MOB shortcut.

Nothing in the ECS manual that discusses how the MOB function is supposed to work.

I like Coastal Explorer – a lot. But, they need better documentation. This is one example of the documentation deficit.

14

Thank you for the feedback. We will add this to our list of documentation changes to make.

In the meantime, the MOB button simply drops a MOB mark and activates it so you can get back to that location.