August 2020

V4.2
ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Contents
Contents ........................................................... 1
Overview .......................................................... 2
Quality .......................................................... 2
Carriage compliance ..................................... 2
Licensing ...................................................... 2
SENC Services ............................................. 2
Pay as you Sail (PAYS) ................................ 2
Further information........................................ 2
Getting started with AVCS ................................ 3
Before you start ............................................ 3
Installing permits and data ............................ 3
Maintaining your holdings ............................. 4
Readme file................................................... 4
Other important information .......................... 4
Working with AVCS .......................................... 5
Downloaded data .......................................... 5
Exchange set ................................................ 5
ENC data on disc .......................................... 5
AVCS permits ............................................... 5
The ‘Schedule A’ ........................................... 5
Cancelled ENCs ........................................... 5
Adding ENC coverage .................................. 6
ADMIRALTY Information Overlay (AIO)............ 7
T&P NMs ...................................................... 7
EP NMs ........................................................ 7
Compatibility ................................................. 7
Troubleshooting................................................ 8
IHO S-58 Standard - ENC Validation ............ 8
Incorrect chart information ............................ 8
Security Scheme Errors (SSE) ...................... 8
Conversion errors ......................................... 9
Technical support ......................................... 9
Emergency chart permits .................................. 9

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Overview defined periods of time. AVCS Folios and ENC

Units may be added to an AVCS licence at any
ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service (AVCS) is time for periods of 3, 6, 9 or 12 months (where
produced and distributed according to well- data supply agreements allow). This offers
defined international standards. maximum choice and the flexibility to match your
chart holdings to your operational patterns.
This guide provides generic information to assist
in managing and maintaining your AVCS SENC Services
holdings.
When they are loaded into the ECDIS, ENCs
This guide should be used in conjunction are converted to the system’s own proprietary
with the User Manual supplied by your format, known as System ENC (SENC). To
ECDIS manufacturer. allow them to load more efficiently, some service
providers convert AVCS ENCs to SENC ashore,
AVCS brings together official Electronic
then send them to the vessel, usually by
Navigational Charts (ENC) from national
download.
Hydrographic offices around the world. It
includes ENC coverage produced by UKHO in
AVCS SENC services carry full ADMIRALTY
co-operation with Foreign Governments to
assurance and accreditation.
provide comprehensive worldwide coverage.

Quality Pay as you Sail (PAYS)

AVCS meets customer requirements for a PAYS subscriptions provide your vessel with
comprehensive, world-wide, fully carriage permits for the majority of the AVCS portfolio, so
compliant electronic chart service. AVCS they are available for voyage planning. Where
continues to develop in response to customer the Producer allows their ENCs to be included in
feedback. the PAYS Service you avoid having to purchase
them individually. You are only charged for their
UKHO has a programme of assessment by its
use when your vessel tracks across the
professional cartographers, where the content of
coverage of each ENC.
the ENC is compared to relevant paper charts.
Any navigationally significant differences are The ENC data must still be loaded onto your
communicated to users of AVCS through ECDIS either manually or automatically.
ADMIRALTY Information Overlay (AIO). No
other electronic chart service offers this level of
reassurance.
Further information
NP231 ADMIRALTY Guide to the Practical Use
Carriage compliance of ENCs is a comprehensive guide to the ENC
AVCS contains Official ENC data that meets portrayal, standards and regulations.
Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Carriage
The UKHO website, admiralty.co.uk, has more
Requirements for use within Electronic Chart
information and links to resources for use with
Display and Information Systems (ECDIS).
AVCS.
Licensing
The ENCs in AVCS are provided under a
licence agreement that allows their use for

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Getting started with AVCS Installing permits and data

Specific instructions for some common models
This start-up guide is designed to help you to of ECDIS are available at admiralty.co.uk/AVCS.
load and maintain your AVCS data easily and
Videos are also available at
quickly. It describes the basic steps necessary
youtube.com/user/AdmiraltyTV
to use AVCS in any ECDIS. The functionality for
loading and maintaining AVCS will differ from 1. Before loading AVCS ENCs, the ENC Permits
one ECDIS to another, so this guide should be must be installed on the system. The permits
used in conjunction with the User Manual consist of two files for each ECDIS: ENC.PMT
supplied by your ECDIS manufacturer. and PERMITS.TXT.
AVCS contains official ENCs issued by Install your permits, referring to your ECDIS
Government Hydrographic Offices. It is User Guide.
designed to be used in conjunction with a type-
approved ECDIS to meet the requirements of AVCS customers with multiple ECDIS on board
SOLAS Chapter V. should be careful to load the correct permits into
the corresponding system.
Before you start Permit sets are labelled MASTER, BACKUP,
1. Your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent will have RESERVE 1, 2 and 3.
provided the following materials:
The International Hydrographic Office (IHO)
Public Key, IHO.CRT, may need to be updated
AVCS data on DVDs, media drives or other
on older ECDIS. Refer to your ECDIS manual
means of obtaining base ENCs and their
for more details.
updates.
Schedule A (a document listing the Folios 2. Load ENCs from media drive or discs. Each disc
and Units that you have licensed). contains ENCs from the producers listed on the
A set of ENC Permit files (PERMIT.TXT and label. Note that some producers (such as the
ENC.PMT) for each ECDIS equipment. United Kingdom) produce data worldwide so the
AVCS Certificate (a document showing your Base discs do not directly correspond to a
vessel and licence details). geographical area.
ADMIRALTY Information Overlay (AIO)
It is only necessary to load the discs that contain
data (recommended).
licensed ENCs, as listed in the Schedule A. The
ECDIS will manage the loading of all ENC cells
2. Referring to the User Guide for your ECDIS,
based on the installed ENC Permits.
remove any existing ENCs and if possible, any
installed permits. 3. Load the ADMIRALTY Information Overlay (if
supplied), which provides additional information
You are now ready to load AVCS onto your for passage planning. The Overlay contains
ECDIS. Temporary & Preliminary Notices to Mariners
(T&P NMs) for paper charts and ENC
Preliminary Notices to Mariners (EP NMs),
which highlight navigationally significant
differences between ENCs and ADMIRALTY
paper charts.

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

A permit for AIO is provided free of charge with Other important information
AVCS. If it does not display, please ask your Information about general cautions when using
ADMIRALTY Chart Agent to check that it has ENCs within ECDIS is contained in the
been added to your licence and that your ECDIS document “Important information for AVCS
has been enabled. users” which can be found on the Support tab at
admiralty.co.uk/avcs and the INFO folder on
Maintaining your holdings AVCS discs.
1. A new set of ENC Permits will be supplied by
your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent whenever an Updates applied to the ECDIS may have a
ENC has been added or removed from your navigational impact on an area covered by a
licence. These should be installed on the ECDIS stored route. It is important to check the effect of
when they are received, before loading any new any updates on these routes prior to their use.
AVCS discs.

You may also receive an updated Schedule A.

2. Your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent will supply you
with weekly AVCS update data.

Alternatively, you may use your ECDIS or other

software to request and download ENC
updates.
New AVCS DVDs and an AIO CD are issued
every week, and the data is cumulative. To
update the ECDIS, just load the ENCs from the
latest AVCS discs that you hold. Alternatively,
you may only receive the updated data for the
ENCs that you hold.
3. Periodically, ENCs are cancelled as part of the
continuous maintenance of ENC coverage
worldwide.

It is strongly recommended that you choose to

delete any cancelled ENCs from the ECDIS
otherwise it may display out of date data in
preference to more recent ENCs.

Readme file
AVCS discs and downloaded exchange sets
contain a ‘README.TXT’ file which includes
important safety information that should be read
before using the service and checked on a
weekly basis.
The latest README.TXT file can also be viewed
in on the Support tab at admiralty.co.uk/avcs.
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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Working with AVCS (PERMIT.TXT and ENC.PMT) will be copied

automatically into folder(s) named MASTER,
BACKUP, RESERVE1, RESERVE2 and
Downloaded data RESERVE3 depending on the number of ECDIS
Your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent may provide you configured on the bridge.
with the capability to deliver the ENCs and
The permits may be supplied on physical media,
updates that you need over the internet or by
separately by email, downloaded over the
email. This has the advantage of allowing you to
internet, or directly from back of bridge software
keep the ENCs on your ECDIS up to date and
applications. The contents should be extracted
avoid the delay when discs are delivered by
to a file location that is capable of being read by
post.
the ECDIS system.
Exchange set
The ‘Schedule A’
ENC data, catalogues and metadata files are
The Schedule A document informs the user
organised in an internationally recognised
which Volumes on the DVDs are required to
standard format that is recognised by the
install the licensed ENCs. A sample of the
ECDIS. A complete collection is known as an
information contained in the Schedule A is
‘exchange set’ and will normally be named
provided below. Note that ‘volumes’ in the
“V01X01”.
Schedule A are currently still labelled as ‘Home
Large datasets, such as AVCS DVDs, may be CD’
supplied in a different Large Media Format,
If the user does NOT have a copy of the
which is named “M01X01”.
Schedule A they can refer to the media.txt file at
the root level of the AVCS disc to determine
ENC data on disc
which Volume contains the data for a given
The AVCS DVD service comprises all the base
Producer Code. If in any doubt, both AVCS
and update data and is distributed on two discs
DVDs must be installed to ensure that all
every week. This simplifies the work for the
licensed ENCs are loaded on the ECDIS.
ECDIS in reading the data into the system. The
ENCs are organised into nine folders or
Cancelled ENCs
Volumes on the disc. The DVDs are named
Periodically, ENCs are cancelled as part of the
“M01X01”.
continuous maintenance of ENC coverage
If you receive multiple update discs on board at worldwide. If possible, cancelled ENCs are
the same time, you only need to use the most replaced with alternative or new coverage so
recent one because they are cumulative. there is no loss of coverage in your ECDIS.

AVCS permits
Each permit is unique and is the method which
gives the user access to the required ENCs.
The ENC Permits are supplied in a zipped file
and the contents of this file will depend on the
user’s bridge configuration, as each AVCS
licence allows for use on up to five ECDIS.
When extracted, one or more set of permit files

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

It is strongly recommended that you choose

to delete any cancelled ENCs from the SENC
as failure to do so may result in the ECDIS
displaying out of date ENCs in preference to
more up to date data.

Adding ENC coverage

Additional AVCS Folios and Units may be
purchased during the subscription period
through your chosen ADMIRALTY Chart Agent.
Once your order has been approved by your
ADMIRALTY Chart Agent, you will receive new
ENC Permits to ‘unlock’ the newly added data.
These permit files are cumulative so as well as
unlocking the new coverage they will also hold
the permits necessary to unlock all your existing
coverage.
You can use software applications and some
ECDIS to order new permits and data, then
have them delivered direct to your vessel.

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

ADMIRALTY Information be found at admiralty.co.uk/AVCS and in the

INFO folder on all AVCS and AIO discs.
Overlay (AIO) Note: Official ENCs remain the primary source
of information for navigation at all times.
The AIO is a worldwide digital dataset that is
designed to be displayed over ENCs in ECDIS EP NMs
and other chart display systems to provide
ENC Preliminary (EP) NMs highlight
additional information during passage
navigationally significant differences between
planning. The Overlay displays ADMIRALTY
ENCs and ADMIRALTY paper charts. These
paper chart Temporary & Preliminary Notices to
NMs are displayed in the same way as T&P
Mariners (T&P NMs) where temporary
NMs. Each NM is allocated a unique EP NM
information has not been encoded by the
number.
producer into the underlying ENC.
The full text of the NM can be viewed in the
The AIO also draws attention to areas where
ECDIS Pick Report. Where additional
differences between ENCs and paper charts
information is needed to explain the NM an
may affect the passage plan.
associated picture file displays an image
showing the ENC superimposed over the
T&P NMs
current paper chart information.
ADMIRALTY paper chart T&P NMs are not
displayed where producers have stated that the
Compatibility
information is already available in their
The Overlay can be displayed on AIO-
ENCs. AIO also does not include T&Ps that are
compatible ECDIS equipment as well as some
only relevant to the paper chart.
software applications. A list of AIO-compatible
Each NM is displayed as a simple polygon with ECDIS can be found on the Support tab at
a hatched fill which indicates the area affected admiralty.co.uk/AVCS, or consult your supplier.
by the NM. Each polygon carries the same NM
The Overlay data is held on a single CD which is
number that is used in the ADMIRALTY Weekly
installed and updated in the same way as ENCs.
Bulletin.
The AIO permit GB800001 is free of charge for
The full text of the NM is included as an AVCS users and can be added to your licence.
associated text file which can be displayed by Please contact your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent if
selecting the 'Temporary Notice to Mariners' or you wish to use the Overlay or cannot view on
'Preliminary Notice to Mariners' feature in the your ECDIS.
ECDIS Pick Report. Any associated diagrams
Further information can be found in the AIO
can also be viewed through the Pick Report.
User Guide, which is available on the AIO disc
AIO may not contain all T&P NMs issued by the and at admiralty.co.uk/avcs.
ENC producer. There may be a time delay
between the publication or cancellation of
national T&P NMs and the publication or
removal of the equivalent ADMIRALTY T&P
NMs.
A list of ENC producers whose policy is to
include T&P NM information in their ENCs can

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Troubleshooting The table below shows a list of the SSE codes:

IHO S-58 Standard - ENC Error messages likely to be displayed in an ECDIS

Validation SSE 03
Certificate is invalid (Authentication
The majority of the ENC checks defined in the failure)

IHO Standard S-58 are intended for use in the Format of Certificate is incorrect
SSE 04
ENC validation software that is used by (Authentication failure)
Hydrographic Offices or Regional ENC SA Digital Certificate file is not
SSE 05
Coordinating Centres. These were not intended available (Authentication failure)
to be used in ECDIS. However, some system SA Digital Certificate is invalid
manufacturers have incorporated some, or all SSE 06
(Authentication failure)
the ENC validation checks in their ECDIS
Certificate file is not available
software. As a result, you may see misleading SSE 07
(Authentication failure)
messages indicating that officially produced and
Format of Private Key is incorrect
released ENC data contains errors, when it does SSE 08
(Authentication failure)
not. In some cases, official ENC data may even
being reported as not suitable for navigational Signature is invalid (Authentication
SSE 09
failure)
use.
Files are different (check after
You should only report these errors where an SSE 10
decryption)
ENC has failed to load. These are normally
Cell Permit file not found (Decryption
identified by the ECDIS as a fatal error or ENC SSE 11
failure)
failed import. UKHO will seek to resolve these
cases with the ENC producer. Cell Permit format is incorrect
SSE 12
(Decryption failure)

Incorrect chart information Cell Permit is invalid (checksum

According to IHO rules, each producer is SSE 13 [CRC] is incorrect / decryption
failure)
responsible for producing the ENCs in their own
waters. As a result, UKHO is unable correct any SSE 14 Incorrect system date
errors that are reported by users, except for GB SSE 15 Subscription licence has expired
ENCs. However, we will pass on any user
SSE 16 ENC CRC value is incorrect
feedback to the Producer Nation with the aim of
resolving any issues.
Codes 03 to 09 relate to the ECDIS check of
the authenticity of the discs being loaded
Security Scheme Errors (SSE) Codes 11 to 13 relate to the permits supplied
As part of the IHO Standard S-63 Data Codes 14 and 15 relate to checks on licence
Protection Scheme, ECDIS have to include validity
standard error and warning messages called Codes 10 and 16 relate to checks carried out
Security Scheme Errors (SSE). on the consistency of the ENC data

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ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service - User Guide

Conversion errors When reporting a chart related problem, it is

When ENCs are loaded into an ECDIS they are useful if you can provide the following details:
converted from the standard S57 format they Licence Number
are supplied into the systems specific format of Vessel Name
the ECDIS being used (the System ENC – ECDIS/Software Manufacturer
SENC). Details of error message – Including ‘SSE’
Data being supplied within AVCS has been error code
validated to very high standards and the number Screen shot(s) of error
of conversion errors being reported should be Details of Base Discs or DVD used (date)
low. Details of Update CD used (date)
Details of permits used (date)
When loading ENCs the ECDIS could report the Details of Cell number(s) errors apply to
following error conditions: Have there been any configuration changes
1. The ECDIS is unable to load the ENC or Update to computers
at all, or loads and reports an error. This is not Details of User Permit(s) and PIN(s)
common. If the problem persists, please contact
your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent.

2. The ECDIS loads the ENC or Update and Emergency chart permits
reports a warning. This is quite common on
In certain circumstances it may be necessary
some ECDIS systems and reflects minor
for a vessel to get access to an ENC at very
differences in the way it interprets the S-57
short notice. Your ADMIRALTY Chart Agent has
standard. We are not aware of any evidence
access to the UKHO 24-hour online ordering
that the correct operation of the ENC in the
system and can very quickly deliver new permits
ECDIS is affected in these cases.
to you by email or internet. Also, some ECDIS or
Technical support bridge software allow you to order and download
new permits yourself.
You will receive the most effective support if you
address your initial query to the correct If these options are not available to you and you
organisation. need new permits due to a medical or safety
emergency only, individual AVCS ENC Permits
Problem Contact
can be obtained from the UKHO at any time.
Hardware problems: difficulties with the Please quote Vessel Name, ECDIS User Permit
keyboard, mouse, display or main system
Number, required ENC(s) and reason for
console, CD or DVD drive. ECDIS
request.
Software problems: difficulties with Manufacturer
configuring or using the ECDIS system These permits can be transmitted direct to the
software, interfacing problems. vessel by email, or simply by reading the
Chart installation problems: problems characters out over the telephone.
with installing certificates, permits and
AVCS ENCs, standard error codes ADMIRALTY
displayed. Chart Agent
Chart content problems: display
anomalies or mismatched data displays.