Paul_Aris

Any body ever try to take any free maps and convert them to work with Bobcat? Is it an easy process? Any help would be great.

I just got a Nuvi 250W today. I had a chance to use it a bit. One thing I noticed is no home depot or menards in my area. However, I have both in my area. The menards has been there for 10+ years. Other than that the thing is really cool and so far seems spot on. One thing to note. You still need to know how to drive and read the road signs. Please don't rely on the GPS only.

Weird. All i use is NIMH batteries in mine and my screen is only dark without the backlighting turned up at night.

I love mine. I guess it depends on if you got a good one or a defective one and what your expectations are. Mine does much more than my old one could ever do.

I think you would be good to go with navigator. However, I am not sure if you still need bobcat to view any other converted maps such as topo. Bobcat is free. It is more of a viewer, track, route and waypoint program. You still need the mapconvertor to convert you PC maps. Its all free from garmins site.

Good idea. I always liked my etrex. I considered a more powerful color one but had to have the lastest. Anyway, I may be getting a Nuvi 200W in a week or so. My wife is thinking of getting me one with some reward points she has saved up.

Garmins Bobcat will give you mapsource type functions to use with the converted maps with. So far I like it on my Mac.

I don't get the Geocache thing. I have only downloaded a couple and the both show up. I even marked one as found and it changed color on the map. Are you using the Send to GPS button which uses communicator from the geocache page? Also, Battery life is excellent in mine using NIMH rechargeables. So far I could not be happier with mine. As far as the dunk test I have not done it. My etrex legend I don't think I would want to dunk and I sued it for seven years around water, in the rain and in the snow mounted to my snowmobile dash. I have not had any issues with it. Good luck with your new unit.

They have to put the seal somewhere. All O-ring style seals are at least inboard enough to create a groove to but the O-ring in. So if it is just plastic who cares if the o-ring is inset 1/8" or 1"?

I got 18Z005xxx and my unit barely made 7 hours with a fresh set of alkaline batteries left on overnight with no compass or backlight. Sounds like yours may be pretty close to mine maybe just a couple of digits off.

What serial # you got. Mine is 18XXXX. I am only on my second set of NI MH rechargeables since I got mine on thursday. And I still have 1/2 of the second set. My battery gauge seems to be working fine. I have had the backlight on full most of the time. Mine seems nice and bright with the backlight turned up all the way. When I first got mine and I was on 2.3 I was disappointed. Even with the backlight but since 2.4 and turning backlight limiting off I have not had a problem seeing the screen.

Sounds like you may need to upgrade the firmware to 2.4. My backlighting improved a lot with the upgrade. Also make sure you have good batteries in it. I believe if they they are less than have charge left it goes to dim. See the FAQ on this forum for more answers.

Topo map for sure. The new 2008 Topo by mapsource looks good. The nice thing about topos are all the 2 tracks and seasonal roads typically show up. Ram mounts are nice to have as well.

Same here so far.

I run Powerizer in all my GPS and digital cameras. Currently have some 2600 and am having real good results in the colorado. If you get a pair that don't seem to last long after a while. Reset them but taking them out of the charger and sticking them right back in after they have been charged. Or unplug the charger and replug it in. That usually corrects them.

I went with the invisible sheild. Glad I did after a day or so you can't even tell its on there. Mine fit the screen perfect. Not too short at all.

I figured it out. I was using my 12" powerbook and with the window set to maximize to fit the screen I could not see the window to select map product. I had to rearrange the tool bar a bit to get all the tools in view.

I deleted all my preferences and got rid of the webupdater. Reinstalled now it works. Does anyone know how to view the base map that comes with Bobcat once you load one of your own converted maps. I had a trail map that I converted to mac format. It shows that but nothing else.

I deleted all my preferences and got rid of the webupdater. Reinstalled now it works. Does anyone know how to view the base map that comes with Bobcat once you load one of your own converted maps. I had a trail map that I converted to mac format. It shows that but nothing else.

I have been using Bobcat and my colorado just fine. Went top open the software on the mac this morning and the icon bounces a few times but the software will not open. I even redownloaded bobcat from garmins site and reloaded it. Still does not work. The only thing I did since the last time I used bobcat was download garmins webupdater for mac os.

Push the power button. It is on the backlight/battery strength screen. Mine kept time before and after the upgrade.

Hi Paul, I think you mentioned you bought yours from gpsnow.com. Since mine is coming today from them as well, I'm curious about if your clock is working ok, and how's the battery life without the firmware update. Also, can you provide a partial serial # so I can compare when mine comes? Thanks! I don't remember how to find the clock, I know its there because I saw it last night. I don't have my manual with me right now. I had some partially charged NIMH when I got it. I played with it all last night with the backlight on and so far this morning. The batteries do say low now but I am still running on the same one. I would say that is no different or even better than my etrex. I did do the firmware update about 1 hour ago. My unit ID is ?????51494

, that's not a good sign. Mine is coming this morning from gpsnow and is probably the same lot # as yours. Pull the batteries and try again. Yes, I did pull the batteries and fires up fine now. Man so far the update is awesome. I love the new lighting and being able to see road names.

After your download is complete through usb the unit shut off. How long should the first start-up take? I have been hanging on the word Garmin for over 15 minutes now.

If you just need to do waypoint transfer, you can use Bobcat, or one of the other freeware programs linked above. Now comes the problem. I like to view tracks that my unit kept on off road adventures on my computer. Also, I like to make routes sometimes to follow off road. So in order to do this I will probably have to use my PC with my old mapsource TOPO software? Also, does anyone know if the colorado usb works with Virtual PC. I currently use Virtual PC and my etrex legend with a usb/serial adaptor from iogear and work in mapsource topo just fine. I prefer this method over dragging my dell laptop home from work everytime I want to do something with my GPS. I have a G4 and G5 so running windows natively is out of the question. VPC runs pretty clean for me though. Seeing that you have VPC on your Macintosh, just install Garmin's MapConverter and convert your old TOPO's to a Macintosh format and use Garmin's Bobcat with your Colorado for the tracks etc. Instructions are here in a .PDF Is the map just an image file of some sort? You really have no mapsource functionality? In and of it's self, the map is just the map. You need to follow thew directions in that .PDF and use Bobcat and/or MapInstall to get the functionality of MapSource. Bobcat will display your maps and transfer your waypoints and tracks and routes into your computer or GPSr. MapInstall will display and transfer your maps to your GPSr. Well so far I have been able to write view and save tracks on the computer and save them back and forth with Bobcat. It actually has more functionality and a base map than I was expecting.