Corey

The Garmin Communicator browser plugin and GPSBabel are both available for OS X. There are several Mac cache management applications as well. Garmin's RoadTrip is a good data manager too. Check out Garmin's Mac website.

Or go into Find, select Geocaches, press Menu, select Delete.

You'll only get the standard waypoint with GC code and cache name.

Maps can also be loaded with the microSD card directly connected to the computer. It won't touch any other files on the card. Geocaches are stored internally to the unit anyway so, no, they won't be erased.

GSAK is a really powerful and useful tool. The trial period is reasonable to figure it out. If you just need to transfer waypoints to a GPSr, Mapsource or GPSBabel will be adequate. Why not try all the options and see what works best for you?

The NGS survey control stations ("benchmarks") do have an official site already: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl It's possible to download benchmarks batched by county and then use BM2GPX or similar to load them on a GPSr. But anyway, yes, it would be quite convenient for Groundspeak to provide a simple Google Map of their database.

I'm quite happy with the eTrex Vista HCx, which has essentially the same features as the 60CSx in a smaller package. The compass is useful to determine directions when standing still. And for maps, check http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ for freely available ones.

That surprises me as GPX files are rather incompatible with a large number of units. The 60-series/eTrex software can't directly read GPX files; you'd need a computer or similar to transfer to the unit.

Which will get you right here. Yes, there are thousands of ways to combine them.

They've disabled the old KML, but a new one is coming soon! FWIW, GSAK and GE both convert GPX to KML internally using GPSBabel.

I have no idea. Can you do that on any device? If you means simply punching in coords to the device in hand, the answer is yes. The Colorado/Oregon/Dakota software can read GPX files off a MicroSD card. I haven't heard of anyone handing out data cards at events though. They'd likely just use paper.

http://zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest/ Not worth the money to work around a bug that really is Garmin's. The software usually doesn't care about other files on the card. As long as there's a Garmin/ folder it ought to be happy. Now I wonder exactly which of the folders causes it? Time for some testing...

My current format looks like this (using gpxrewrite): Waypoint_Format=%I %N Desc_Format=%L5%s%d%t %O3 %h In GSAK this would probably be approximated by: %drop2 %name %last4,%con1,%dif1,%ter1 %ownerName %hint (The differences: GSAK only would include the last 4 logs instead of 5, and wouldn't truncate the owner name) Just thought I'd share.

There's quite a bit of discussion about this issue in the Vista/Legend update thread. It seems to be caused by the software's handling of files left by the Mac Finder.

".Trashes" is used to store items deleted or "trashed" from the volume. ".fseventsd" is used in tracking filesystem changes. ".Spotlight-V100" stores indexing data to aid in searching. I don't see why Garmin's software should care about other files existing on the card.

Sure it does. Use option 4. On the general page-refresh topic, any page changes that need to be made should just be done by JavaScript. Using JS to trigger a page reload seems convoluted. But, that's likely a symptom of the way Microsoft's tools work.

I'm seeing this behavior most but not all of the time when the card is in. Yes, I do use a Mac. I don't believe there's a way to stop the Finder from creating those hidden files though. Maybe I will add the removal commands to my script that runs when the card is mounted. Sometimes I've seen a large spike in elevation data at power on. Presumably this fixes that. I observed the same but tried again and it worked.

The Vista HCx software is much the same as on the 60-series units. Waypoints can have 14 characters in a name and 30 in the description. POI's (which are slightly more complicated to generate) can have 60-character names and 100-character descriptions.

I'm not sure that Mapsource can display more than one map at a time -- Garmin's Mac software can't. Once they're loaded onto the GPSr, multiple maps can be layered. My 2GB card currently has about 1.3G of maps on it including all of California Topo, the western third of Ibycus USA, and part of Washington Topo along with a few smaller maps.

Oh, apparently the latest firmware update adds support for maps over 2GB!

Most Garmin units (with the exception of the Colorado/Oregon/Dakota series) have a very limited amount of text space for each waypoint. Any unit should be able to download coordinates via the Garmin browser plugin or using GPSBabel. I sometimes use Groundspeak's Geocaching app on the iPod Touch. It can get data via WiFi and optionally save it for offline access, or download entire Pocket Queries (if you have a Premium membership).

As I understand it, the eTrex firmware can only address 2GB of map data (there's also a limited number of map tiles it can use). So a card over 2GB is just going to be wasted space. POI's and tracklogs take up very small amounts of space. A 2GB card works very well for me. I believe 2GB is also the maximum for the SD format; anything above that is SDHC. I'm not sure about compatibility. For maps, I might suggest a freely available map first.

GPSBabel (used internally by GSAK and others) has a very flexible CSV output mechanism. But, you will need to use GPX files to have the necessary data.

Even if one can upload PNG's, I believe the site converts them to JPEG anyway.

Yes, the order on the "nearest.aspx" page has been slightly out of order for a little while now.