Calgary Jeep Association
4x4 Related Groups => General Talk => Topic started by: bgill on February 09, 2006, 03:44:49 PM
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looking into getting myself a GPS unit. Want one that can store maps and trails that I do. any recomendations??
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Magellan sporttrak Color.
Boss had one. You can load maps into it. Very detailed. Think the model is discontinued, but there are some new ones left on ebay.
Otherwise you need to get the new fancier, more expensive ones.
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i got a Garmin NV650 for christmas. it actually had Wiaprous Valley Rd all the way, which suprised me.But I am wondering if there is any after market trail programs for it other than 'topo'.. when I went to Margaret lake it didnt show anything.. I would like to find a program that knows all or most of the trails and can follow and store your own that you travel..
there is one program offered on the garmin site called "TOPO". does anyone know if its any good. (found here: http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/ )
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I've got a garmin legend CX and it's great. With City Navigator it shows Waiporous Road and with Topo it shows a few of the starting points, however none of the trails are shown on any Garmin, Magellan, Tom Tom or any other units. You hve to run the trails and save the tracks which can be done on any unit.
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Could always get one of these
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-VR3-IN-DASH-CAR-STEREO-GPS-DVD-CD-MP3-TOUCHSCREEN_W0QQitemZ330199799262QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item330199799262
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I've got a garmin legend CX and it's great. You hve to run the trails and save the tracks which can be done on any unit.
is that with topo? or just with city-navigator? If its just CN how do you do that?
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i have a garmin......love it........easy updates tons of maps and i rarely lose satellite...also has an mp3 player which is kinda nice https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=6292
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i have a garmin......love it........easy updates tons of maps and i rarely lose satellite...also has an mp3 player which is kinda nice https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=6292
How does it do off road ?
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i had it in the mountains by sunrise lake in bc and i never lost my satellite once....thats the only major off-roading ive done with it but if you nkow sunrise lake its pretty secluded....i know another friend who has the same one which is why i bought it and he is an extreme off-roader and has nothing but good things to say about it....abit pricey but definatly worth the xtra moola
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when you are off road does it just show a blank screen ?
Or can you load topo maps to it to get more detailed maps of those "offroad" locations ?
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nope...no blank screen....you can aload and add to favorites
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when you are off road does it just show a blank screen ?
It does if it isnt recognizing a "known" road. It still will show your position relating to other roads around you if your zoomed out far enough. Aperantly you can make and save your own trails, tho i havnt figured out how to do that yet.. whether it requires topo or just the city nav program.. i am waiting to hear back from Dragonmaster about that.
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nope...no blank screen....you can aload and add to favorites
What does it show then ? Detail wise...
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it shows the closest roads.....and there is a way to track your trip so you can backtrack if you get "lost"......plus you can save the destinations as long as there is satellite coverage
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It does if it isnt recognizing a "known" road. It still will show your position relating to other roads around you if your zoomed out far enough. Aperantly you can make and save your own trails, tho i havnt figured out how to do that yet.. whether it requires topo or just the city nav program.. i am waiting to hear back from Dragonmaster about that.
Upload the topo maps and create your trails on that. Would be better then just a blank screen with black lines on it.
With the topo maps, it should look like this...
(http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/electronics/detail-page/rino-1.jpg)
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i got a Garmin NV650 for christmas. it actually had Wiaprous Valley Rd all the way, which suprised me.But I am wondering if there is any after market trail programs for it other than 'topo'.. when I went to Margaret lake it didnt show anything.. I would like to find a program that knows all or most of the trails and can follow and store your own that you travel..
there is one program offered on the garmin site called "TOPO". does anyone know if its any good. (found here: http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/ )
Yes.... and free!!!
Trail maps: http://members.shaw.ca/calgarytrailmaps/maps.htm
Topo Map project (still in progress): http://www.ibycus.com/ibycustopo/
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It does if it isnt recognizing a "known" road. It still will show your position relating to other roads around you if your zoomed out far enough. Aperantly you can make and save your own trails, tho i havnt figured out how to do that yet.. whether it requires topo or just the city nav program.. i am waiting to hear back from Dragonmaster about that.
Pretty much just run the trail and go into tracks and save the track with the trail name. Your saved tracks always show without CN or Topo. The tracks feature is part of all units and you don't need any program to utilize them, however having topo is beneficial as it shows more streams, lakes, rivers etc.
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havnt figured out how to save tracks.. i am not sure if you can do it on my model. if so then, that is rediculous.
checkin out these topo trails JohnB suggested.. but this dang mac.. i gotta go through my old ladies PC.
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canyou do this stuff on a tom tom go 510
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Tom Tom are for city slikers.....
or Pavement princess driver..... :o
You have been hanging too much with XJ wrencher!!! ;D ;D ;D
who the heck pull that thread from 2 years ago.... holy crap...
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canyou do this stuff on a tom tom go 510
No....
The biggest reason to get a Garmin these days is that there is a huge amount of free mapping available for them.
Also don't get a Mac that does not do the PC simulation... The amount of GPS software available is little to none.
As I pointed out above, the entire canadian topographic database is available for Garmin maps for free.
A shot of the Margaret Lake Area with Ibycus' Maps.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/Red90rover/ibycus.jpg)
A shot of the trails in the area with the Calgary Trail Maps. Note on the GPS, you will see these both at the same time.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/Red90rover/cacmap.jpg)
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Tom Tom are for city slikers.....
or Pavement princess driver..... :o
You have been hanging too much with XJ wrencher!!! ;D ;D ;D
who the heck pull that thread from 2 years ago.... holy crap...
I got a tom tom from work, xmass gift
i was hoppin it could do more than get me to the closest gas station.
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Looks like my Garmin Nuvi 650, does not have the Mapsource program required to use the programs JohnB pointed out. That would also explain why I cant save/create my own trails.. I will be calling Garmin tomorrow to see if there is something I am missing, or if there is some way of getting the Mapsource program. If this is not the case, then I will be exchanging my gps for another more compatible and customizable model.
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Looks like my Garmin Nuvi 650, does not have the Mapsource program required to use the programs JohnB pointed out. That would also explain why I cant save/create my own trails.. I will be calling Garmin tomorrow to see if there is something I am missing, or if there is some way of getting the Mapsource program. If this is not the case, then I will be exchanging my gps for another more compatible and customizable model.
http://www.gpscentral.ca/accessories/mapsourcecanadiandifferences.htm
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You don't need Mapsource. There are other programs available for uploading and download maps and track to the unit. Or you can find Mapsource on the net, if you look.
However, I'm not sure if the Nuvis support tracks but they probably do. They certainly support uploadng maps. You just need an SD card.
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I have not tried this, but.... It is supposed to be a way to get Mapsource for free.
Download "training center", http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99999-04 and install.
Then download the latest update to Mapsource, http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=209 and install.
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well I called garmin and they gave me some discouraging news. the Nuvi 650 unit that I have does not act like other units. It is unable to use some of the other third party programs such as the maps by Marco Dipol, and it attaches as a removable hard drive. it does not utilize drivers or the USB in ways that other units do. You can buy the canada topo maps sd cards, but there is no way of making or saving your own trails or "tracks".
He told me that i should buy a second unit that is more offroad capable if that is what i want to use it for..
I am going to email the marco dipol and see if there is a patch or something that would help me load those calgary area trails on my nuvi.
in the mean time, what gps units are you guys using and how do you like them so far? I am going to take his advice and look into a more capable unit.
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They are WRONG. You can add custom maps...... Trust me.......
Install Mapsource and it will send to the card. It will send to ANY sd card....
Or use IMG2GPS, http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mdipol/img2gps/
The topo maps and trail maps shown above will work on the Nuvi.
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I replied to your PM on the Nuvi.
With a Nuvi, you don't send to the GPS in the same way that was done with traditional Garmin units. When plugged in the SD card should show up as a drive on the computer. You send the maps to that drive and not via the "normal" USB/Garmin interface.
Within IMG2GPS or Mapsource, you send the maps to the drive that represents your SD card when plugged into the computer and NOT via the "USB" link...
You won't get help from Garmin because they do not support 3rd party maps.... In fact, they do not approve of their existence. Their map format is NOT open source and they are probably not pleased that people figured it out.
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yea i would have figured that they would be a little displeased so I only told him I was trying to use 3rd party maps, when he asked who, I said it was the canadian federal government free topo maps.
anyway, i managed to figure it out, dont ask me how... just downloading and installing crap loads of programs and then something triggered mapsource to open. it recognized the "calgary trails" map and displayed it. I have it installed over top of my city nav.
One thing that changed and is weird: When I tell it to "GO" to the spot I have designated as Margaret lake, instead of it doing the usual trip 1a -> highway 40 -> "unpaved road" -> Wiaprous Valley Rd and then drawing a straight line directly to the ML Save point (skipping the "non existing" trails), it now wants to travel on HWY 1 all the way out to H"WY 95 in Golden (!), then all the way back to the 1a in canmore -> hwy 40 up 40 "forestry trunk rd" and then straight through and over mocking bird & Ghost country trails to ML.
obviously a little bit of a glitch, but hey, the maps are there so I am happy.
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What is happening is that it is routing on the world basemap then the Calgary Trail Maps. It can only route on one detailed map at a time and with both turned on, sometimes it gets confused over which to use. Usually if you have a decent GPS fix on a road in City Navigator it will choose those and should automatically switch to the Trail maps when off road. Sometimes it doesn't work right. There should be an option to turn the Trail Maps off in the unit somewhere if it is a problem on the road. Figure out how to do that anyway and you'll be able to get the topo maps on there as well. With those, you will need to switch between maps on the unit as only one can show up at a time.
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yea I figured out how to turn maps on/off, and it sets everything back to normal. thanks for your help JB!
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It does if it isnt recognizing a "known" road. It still will show your position relating to other roads around you if your zoomed out far enough. Aperantly you can make and save your own trails, tho i havnt figured out how to do that yet.. whether it requires topo or just the city nav program.. i am waiting to hear back from Dragonmaster about that.
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a gps will allow you log your own trails
a navigation system (generally) will not