Loading IHO S-63 ENCs

IHO S-63 is a standard for encrypting, securing, and compressing electronic nautical charts, also known as ENCs. The standard uses CRC32, SHA1, DSA, and Blowfish algorithms to ensure the protected delivery of nautical charts. Most commercial ENC's on the market today are protected using the S-63 standard.

Each Hydromagic dongle contains a unique hardware ID, which is encrypted and cannot be read by the user of the software. Charts purchased for this software will work only on this installation of the software. The hardware ID is encrypted using the OEM and manufacturer ID, forming the 'User Permit' which is used to purchase ENCs.

Purchasing ENC's

S-63 ENCs can be purchased through your local marine supplies dealer or an online reseller. To purchase ENCs, you need the 'User Permit' and must register it with the online chart store or your local reseller.

Because the hardware ID is encrypted in the Hydromagic registration code or hardlock, it is only possible to use S-63 ENCs in registered versions of the software. It is not possible to load these charts when using a trial, demo or rental version.

Obtaining the user permit

To obtain the user permit for your software installation, select the 'S63 ENC Permits...' option from the 'File' menu, as shown in the screenshot below:

You can obtain the user permit via the "S63 ENC Permits..." option.

This will launch the 'S63 ENC Permits' dialog, which contains the user permit and can be used to activate purchased ENCs. When using a registered version of the software, the dialog should contain the user permit, which can be used to purchase ENCs.

In order to obtain S63 ENC's you have to retrieve the user permit first.

Activation of purchased ENC's

When purchasing ENCs, you will receive a 'PERMIT.TXT' file from your reseller containing the 'Permits' for the purchased ENCs. After importing this file, you will be able to load these. To do so, relaunch the permits dialog by selecting 'S63 ENC Permits...' from the 'File' menu.

:DATE 20240718 14:56
:VERSION 2
:ENC
PL4P301520250731720835959496B1C8720835959496B1C8F5A61CA7F8070C1A,0,15,PM,
PL4P303020250731931A2BC2A0ED696E931A2BC2A0ED696E29501C4B87C3D4AB,0,22,PM,
PL4P451520250731D9C40167E9B52A27D9C40167E9B52A273E71336ACF5258B0,0,16,PM,
PL4P453020250731FB648184A1015D11FB648184A1015D11C168876B8E1A790B,0,15,PM,
:ECS

You can now load the 'PERMIT.TXT' file by clicking the 'Load Permits...' button and selecting the received permit file. You only have to do this once; imported permits will be stored until the software is reinstalled.

When the file has been imported successfully, you should see something like this:

After loading the "PERMIT.TXT" file, the purchased ENC's will be listed.

In most cases, the reseller can supply you with an 'ENC Base CD' containing all the charts for your region. If not, you can download the charts, depending on your reseller, from Primar or IC-ENC.

When the ENCs and permits are correctly installed, select 'Import Map...' from the 'File' menu and select the ENC you want to load. When trying to load an ENC that has not been purchased, you will receive error SSE 11 as shown in the table below.

S63 Screenshots

Loading Permits	Example of S-63 ENC

S63 Error Codes

When an error occurs during the import of permits, or when loading an ENC, you will receive one of the errors described in section 4.4.5. In the case of an error, contact your ENC reseller.