ordered a Garmin 60CX...need advice on maps

[Emmbeedee]

Originally Posted by Fire Escape

So, the chip version can be moved from unit to unit? Without needing new/extra codes

Here's the description:

Manufacturer Description
MapSource City Navigator North America NT features full access to City Navigator North America NT maps, which feature coverage of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico, plus new additional islands in the Caribbean. Get up-to-date, fully-routable maps with over 6 million miles (10 million kilometers) of road coverage and 6.5 million points of interest including restaurants, hotels, ATMs, entertainment and more.

Please note: This MicroSD card ships with a standard SD adapter. Please remove the card from the adapter if necessary for use with your GPS unit.

Pre-programmed datacards:
Pre-programmed datacards can be immediately installed for use in your device. Simply unpack the card and insert it into your compatible GPS device. These maps do not need to be unlocked to your device which allows you to use the card with multiple units if desired. However, you will not have access to the mapping on your computer. Maps in this format will need to be purchased separately when a new version is released.

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This is wrong: "However, you will not have access to the mapping on your computer"

It may have been true before BaseCamp, but it's no longer accurate.

[magconpres]

Originally Posted by 1911fan

Seems like a good deal, where did you buy it? I've been looking at them too.



1911fan

Driven GPS (off their ebay store)

[Fire Escape]

Originally Posted by Emmbeedee

Yes, you can move it from unit to unit, as long as they support micro or regular SD cards. No license at all.

And with newer gps units, maps on the gps are available through BaseCamp, for trip planning, while the gps is plugged into the computer.

I don't know if the 60 works this way - it's possible it may work if you switch it to "Mass Storage Mode" when it's plugged in via usb to the computer.

This is one source of those cards: http://www.gpscentral.ca/accessories...edmicroSD.html

And this is the Micro SD version of City Navigator: http://www.gpscity.com/garmin-city-n...rica-card.html

Thanks so much! I have been 'stuck' in the last millenia for a while, hopefully next week will see my dial-up get replaced with broadband and I can do some of my own research. First up will be to learn about BaseCamp which I am presuming took the place of MapSource.

Bruce

[magconpres]

It arrived today.
Looks new and unused as expected. Oh, and it caem with a 2GB card.
downloaded topos from gps file depot and loaded up the tracks and routes I had collected via BaseCamp. The unit came with MapSource, but since BaseCamp is newer, I used it.

It took my a while to understand how to create routes from tracks, reverse them, and break them up into legs that made sense to me, but I finally got it down after a few restarts.

My only problem now is that the routes have lots of waypoints in them and they are displaying all the time. I figured out how to turn off the symbols in the unit itself, but can't get the labels to go away. There are so many it's hare to see the actual route!

I find a way in BaseCamp to hide the labels, but I can't do it for all the waypoints at once and I have somewhere around 500 total to do.

Any tips? are the gdb files editable (I'm pretty good with text editors and macros).?

Thanks,

mcp

[wbbnm]

I sympathize with you about the screen being cluttered with waypoint names.

I think the best solution is to convert the routes to tracks and just navigate by following the tracks. Don't even bother downloading the routes and those annoying waypoints.

Or I guess one thing you could do is recreate the routes in BaseCamp using the route tool. This will put via points instead of waypoints. The vias will not show unless you are actually navigating a route. If you have City Navigator, you will rarely need a lot of via points to follow the roads you want.

[magconpres]

That may be the best reason for City Navigator yet. I acutally don't need GPS to navigate in the city, and if I did, I'd just use my phone, but if it has all the forest roads, it may be the way to go.

For now, I just went back into base camp and took a lot of the points out of the route. Since they were there from the tracks, there were a lot that ar eonly needed to shape the route, not navigate the turns (intersections). I kept enough in place to give me the general direction of the road just before and after each intersection. The lines are straighter and don't follow the roads as well, but there are a lot fewer points.

Using the eraser tool to remove points is easy. You don't have to click on every point.

Now I have fewer points to modify if I do decide to remove the text.

If you just use tracks, you don't get notification of upcoming turns, right? Are there other differences between routes and tracks in terms of following them?

[wbbnm]

It is true that you don't get turn notification. There are a few other things that you don't get. You don't get autozooming as you get close to a waypoint. And you don't get automatic rerouting calculation if you miss a turn. You don't get the software taking control of your display and changing the orientation so that a right turn looks like a right turn. You don't get the unit computing a substantially different route than the one you saw on your computer. (Some of these "features" only apply to a routeable mapset like City Navigator.)

Personally all these things drive me crazy which was one reason I went to tracks.

When navigating with tracks you have regularly look down to see if you are still on the track you meant to be on. This does result in missed turns occasionally.

And I sometimes have a problem when coming to an intersection on the ground in knowing whether to turn or go straight. This is usually a problem on roads with lots of twists and turns. Rather than take the time to zoom in and examine the roads and tracks carefully, I just pick an option and let the GPS tell me if I made a mistake. I can usually tell within a few hundred yards.

[Pr0xy]

One word of caution on OpenStreetMaps... I've found that some of the smaller roads lose continuity around county/state lines. What that means is that the maps can tend to re-route when they reach a county/state line and instead, find the nearest major road. This is obvious when you are routing using the OSM mapsets on your computer, but if you need to re-route for any reason while riding and you are using OSM, it can really screw up your day.

City Navigator is adequate in most cases. The TOPO 100k isn't routable, so it doesn't help a lot unless you just want to switch between City Nav and TOPO to see the geography better. TOPO 24k is routable, though the cost is also significantly more.

[wbbnm]

I looked at the OSMs a while back. I found that they were not accurate when it came to major and minor dirt roads in places I knew well.

This was enough for me to drop that idea. As someone said - You get what you pay for.

[gunnr]

Originally Posted by Pr0xy

City Navigator is adequate in most cases. The TOPO 100k isn't routable, so it doesn't help a lot unless you just want to switch between City Nav and TOPO to see the geography better. TOPO 24k is routable, though the cost is also significantly more.

So is this as good as CN but with limited topo features. Sounds good to me??

[Hotmamaandme]

Good info. Got a 60cx as a raffle prize a year ago but need maps I might get it set up one day. I'm a gps neophyte