Record Holders

Yes, your 60CSx will work fine with with nRoute. Just download it from Garmin's website.

Showing tracks is a display preference. You can show the Active (current), all, or none.

I've used nRoute dozens of times, and the track always works for me. Are you saying that if you display the active track (set under Display preferences) as you drive, that it doesn't drop points behind you? The points that nRoute will record will be different than the 60 because nRoute will attempt to match the position to the road, unless you turn that option off (set using Preferences->Display->Lock To Road). You can upload the track from your 60 using Mapsource and copy and paste the route from nRoute for comparison.

I got it to work. I was using the ID number instead of the serial number. Don You may have now used your two unlocks on your original coupon code. If you haven't already you should call Garmin customer support and get them to take your first unlock off you records so you can still unlock an a different unit later if you want.

You should either get Topo USA in addition to or instead of the National Park Topo, unless you plan to only hike in National Parks. The included MapSource software is more than adequate for sending waypoints. It accepts gpx and loc files from geocaching.com directly. You can also download nRoute and POI Loader from Garmin's website for free. These give you the ability to navigate on your laptop and send up to 3000 POIs to your unit, respectively. You may also be interested in a 512 MB microSD card, especially if you are planning on loading Topo and City Navigator maps simulataneously.

You can load either .LOC or .GPX files you download from gc.com directly into MapSource or nRoute. It does not load the geocaching specific data, though, you'll probably also want a program like GSAK to give you details and hints. Ive found that combo to be the perfect paperless solution.

I didn't experience any noticable degradation in drawing. It seemed to work the same.

Note that there is no limitation, on size or number of maps, in MapSource. The unit does have a limit in the number of maps that MapSource enforces. According to Garmin this number varies between units, but it appears that the 60cx has a limit of ~1050. That is enough if you are loading streat maps. All of City Select 7 has 1056 map segments, but it is 1.6MB which apparently the 60cx will handle fine when the 2MB cards come out. Topo maps are very different. From playing around with US Topo, it appears that I consistently hit the 1050 limit with ~250MB of maps. It appears to me that if you want to load all the US topo maps onto cards that you'd be better off with 4-5 256MB cards. I would certainly complain to Garmin about this seemingly arbritary 1050 limit. I'm sure that limitation exists in the 60c as well, but it was never a problem with only 56MB of storage.

POI Loader 2.2.1 was just released and it supports GPX files. So now you could load several thousand geocaches into your unit (I've got 3000 in my C320). You can also use MapSource to create the POIs, save them as GPX and send them to the unit using POI Loader.

What mapping product are you using? The only time I get the behavior you're describing is when I have a non-routable product displayed, like Metroguide. However, I can't "Activate a save route" when I have that showing.

You could always change the Map Font size from inside MapSource preferences. Unfortunately that will change the size of all labels, but that might be OK for your use.

You should have Trips and Waypoint Manager and thus you could use nRoute. It's a free download from Garmin. It handles GPX files and USB fine. However to get turn by turn directions, you'll have to upgrade to City Select, but at least you'll be able to load those directly into your unit as well.

I agree that it could be more convenient, but the functionality in nRoute is far superior to the GPS tab in MapSource. I did find that if you click "Select Device" from the menu or toolbar and bring up the unit selection dialog, it disconnects from the unit. Then I transfer from the unit using Mapsourse, copy the waypoints I want and paste them into nRoute. It works in the other direction too.

Given that you have the Garmin maps and unit, probably nRoute is your best bet. It is a free download from Garmin and works with your current MapSource maps. As far as a unit, you can either connect one of the ones you have or buy something like the OEM version of the GPS 18. Since you already have maps, there is no reason to buy the deluxe version which comes with City Select. Note that you can only unlock a map for two units, so if you already unlocked them twice, you should just buy the GPS 18 deluxe package for only ~40 dollars more.

Under Display Preferences, you can turn display spot soundings on. You can also configure which tracks you want to display: None, Active, or All.

Looks like Garmin posted MapSource 6.8 to fix this problem.

The serial to USB converter will present a virtual comm port, e.g. com4, so you should configure nRoute to connect using serial mode. If you don't know which comm port the adaptor is presenting, then try Autodetect on the Select GPS dialog.

From the Garmin's nRoute page: Works with all MapSource products. Note that BlueChart and MetroGuide 5 or greater will not support some features. By "some features" they mean navigation. Metroguide 5+ does not allow autorouting on the unit either. In this case nRoute is acting like the unit and thus it can't do autorouting. You are basically stuck with real-time tracking of your position.

MapSource has never supported the .loc format. It has deprecated suport for the pcx5 format, which is pretty antiquated. If you want .loc support added to MapSource, I would suggest submitting a request to Garmin. For now you have to use a third-party app (EasyMps, GSAK, etc) to convert the .loc format into .gpx or .mps. I do agree with your point, that you could have a .gpx file with just the .loc info in it. This would make for one less file type to support. I don't think a gpx lite format would be any more confusing than getting either a .loc or a .gpx file depending on where you do the download from.

Why would you need to remove the URL field. It works fine in MapSource. The URL is inserted into the waypoints Link field.

nRoute will only autoroute if you have a autorouting map product such as City Select, City Navigator or an older version of MG. nRoute will "work" with Topo, but it will only do point to point routing.

Maybe I'm missing something, but as long as you're getting .gpx files from gc.com, just open it with MapSource and send it. It doesn't seem like it could get much easier than that. The Vista C comes MapSource Trip and Waypoint Manager, so you are set. You may need to get the latest version of MapSource from the web, though.

I still say for ease of use, you can't beat EasyMPS. It even has a few features that the other programs don't have like category and it's really free. I really like GSAK enough to have subscribed, but if you are simply trying to put .loc files into your GPS, EasyMPS is the simplest way to do that. If on the other hand, you are using GPX file, simply get the latest version of MapSource.

I got a response from Garmin that says that the custom waypoint symbol transfer problem is actually in the unit. It appears that the 60, 76c and Quest all have the same problem. Namely, if you send waypoints to the unit from MapSource all custom waypoints are converted to the dot. Also if you send waypoints from the unit to MapSource, any waypoint whose symbol is greater than the 6th custom waypoint symbol is changed to use the 6th symbol. Go figure. It looks like we have to wait for a firmware update...

I've noticed that GPXspinner does not create "validatable" gpx files. If you attempt to validate the created file against the gpx schema, it does not meet the spec.