The only thing that can affect the joystick operation is if the clip on cover is not on correctly or the joystick is slightly restricted by the clip on cover for some reason. Simply removing the clip on cover and carefully reseating it should ensure that this is not the problem and if the joystick is still not behaving properly then we would need you to return the unit to our service centre for rectification.

Test the cartridge using the System Test function – see page 92 (section 8.1.3) for info on this. The C-Card Connector test is also useful for this as it will give you a good idea if there is an intermittent connector problem – when the plotter cannot detect the cartridge, it displays an incremental count and as soon as it communicates correctly with the cartridge it stops the count. 

There is a function to centre the boat on the chart, but the plotter will offset the boat from the actual centre of the screen (based on the current COG value) to optimise the amount of chart displayed in front of the vessel. On a small screen plotter, particularly at high speed, we felt that it made more sense to operate the unit in this manner.

There is a function to Show/Hide a route, please look at page 45 in the User Manual to see how to do this.  

We currently support English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Greek, Finnish, Danish and Polish. We will be working on a Swedish version soon. The unit software can easily be updated and so any translation added in the future can be installed with a simple software update.

You can store lots of individual marks during your passage planning or whilst sailing and these can effectively become your bank of waypoints. To store a mark at the boat's position, press "Clear" to centre the boat (and cursor) on the screen and then press "Enter". Using the up/down cursor pad select MARK and press "Enter". If you want to store a mark at the current cursor position just place the cursor on the point on the chart you wish to mark and press "Enter", using the up/down cursor pad select MARK and press "Enter". To create a route using some of the previously stored marks, simply place the cursor on one of the marks and press "Enter", using the up/down cursor pad select WAYPOINT and press "Enter". The SmarterChart 500 will assume you want to use the selected Mark in the route and create a waypoint out of it. If you later delete the route, the mark will not be deleted. If the cursor is not on a mark when you select WAYPOINT, it will simply create a waypoint that is unique to that route. If you later delete the route the waypoints unique to that route will be deleted.