lookn4somthn

There are a few 'satellite tracking' programs that you might be able to use for this, google around for them. Maybe take a screen shot? http://www.satscape.co.uk/Satscape/Satscape.html you'll have to go the settings / groups / gps and make a few of them your favorite then they'll show on the map hope it helps

I second Red90. I have the HC and the extra $ is well worth the color screen. Sell something on Craigslist or give up coffee for two weeks and go for it. ;-) I bought mine from thenerds.net currently $124 for HC (reman version for $108!!!)

Restarting your cable modem may also help.. (but that's between you and your ISP to further diagnose) You could also try to download from my ADrive.com account... it's not very fast, but may be more reliable in your case... http://tinyurl.com/6kkyb4 Again, this should just be a last chance alternative as I'm not sure how long I can keep that file up there, and many of us have never had a problem with Ibycus' hosting. Free download manager is a nice application that might help this large file download smoother. (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm) Lite version has more than enough features and it let's you restart failed downloads where they left off.

Here's another way to get MapSource... You can use a Mapsource 'update' file to do a full install of MapSource. (Just like using a windows XP upgrade disk to do a full install of XP) 1)Go to www.garmin.com, support, updates and downloads, mapping software, and download the Mapsource Update ~Now if you try to simply run the downloaded file, you will get an error about not having the previous version installed. No worries... 2)Change the file extension (in xp, if you click to highlight the file and then click it once more it will let you rename it) of the downloaded file to .zip and then double click to extract the files to a folder. 3)Run setup.exe to install the MapSource program. 4)Manually install at least one mapset. (ie. Ibycus maps) Mind you this is only recommended if you rightfully deserve to use this product. (ie. by purchasing a Garmin device)

On another note... ;-) FWIW Here's a nice program for 'cleaning' up your HD by easily identifying large files.... http://windirstat.info/ Check out Newegg.com for nice HD prices...

I had the 210 and then bought the venture hc. I'll be honest. The Explorist base map was 'just slightly' more detailed than the garmin. HOWEVER, the Ibycus maps are incredible and super easy to select what you want and download them onto your unit. Except for a few very dense areas, most sections are 2-6mb in size. I can get you some screen shots of some areas if it would help with your decision. ;-) And like others said, the venture does not 'auto-route' (ie. give you turn by turn directions down the road) But, if that's what you want, you should invest in something with a bigger screen size as this would be a real challenge to watch "as you drive" on a regular basis. Hope it helps!

Hats off to you Dale!! Thanks again. Download and install went perfect! I did notice some missing water colors as well though. I'll try to post. My example is the Seattle area, specifically Lake Washington map 30122047.img 1.4 version 2.0 version screenshot of 2.0 from Mapsource I can live without the water issues!! I like how you did the detail levels this time as well. Drive test to follow tonight on my drive home from work!! Woot, Woot!!

I second that I third it ;-)

I used a 210 for about a week and was frustrated that I couldn't get WAAS and the resolution was not as high as I hoped for. I saved for a month and bought a Venture HC etrex (H=High sensitivy, C=color screen) for 125 shipped from thenerds.net and I don't think I could be any happier for the price. It's a fantastic unit and if I power up at least every other day I can lock on and get my position within about 15-20 seconds. Otherwise it might take 45sec to a min.... It's crazy fast. The colors really help to contrast the roads/water/ect and I appreciate the 'universal mini-usb' port and 24mb of RAM. To compare sensitivity, from what I have read/heard/experienced, the 210 beats a basic etrex. However, the "H" series does a bit better than the 210 indoors and lock speed wise. That said I can't really speak to whether it will meet your needs in terms of what you already have setup for getting caches on your unit. There IS something to be said about if it works.... don't change it. For what it's worth...

Also includes: ~Waterproof ~Comes in "Evergreen Green" ~Made from 100% post consumer recycled materials ~Rain gauge to prove that it doesn't really rain 'THAT' much... ~Unique icons to classify rain as: rain, showers, drizzle, mist, isolated showers, spot showers, scattered showers, and widespread showers ~Pill compartment for convenient storage of your seasonal depression medication (usually used Jan to Mar when it's drizzle and highs of 40s every day) ~Californian driver proximity alert/warning ~Starbucks proximity alert That's the best I can do tonight... ;-) ps. note that I have no real personal grudge against Californians and New York get's more annual rainfall than Washington State. ;-)

I think the website is actually mygpsoffer.com Thanks OP for the confirmation this is legit... now off to convince the MRS. Lookn4somthn to let me do it... ;-)

Hi, I can confirm that I know what the problem is, and am working on a fix. If you're impatient, and technically litterate, you can fix the problem yourself (you need to open the map files with GPS Map Edit, and delete the Map Coverage area entity type, and recompile it, afterwards you'll need to recompile the 'pv' file). I'd do it myself, but the fix needs to be applied to quite a few squares, and I'd like to get the problem actually fixed rather than applying a 'patchwork' fix to it. Dale Berta, I will admit it was not so much my impatience but the challenge to see if I could fix the one county file. I have a 'fixed' version of King and Snoho counties you're welcome to use. Just save it to where you installed the Ibycus maps and overwrite the file with this one. Here's my post from page 6: Thanks again Dale, hope the dog is getting better as well as your sleep. ;-) Hope it helps, Brian Brian, the adrive links aren't working for me ... I just get "your download should start automatically.. if not click here" so I click here, and it says "You are trying to visit a page without visiting the download page first" "An error has occured. Please Return to Download Page and try again. Thanks." any ideas? Sorry, looks like my links got chopped... Try these: King County = http://tinyurl.com/5zus29 Snohomish = http://tinyurl.com/5vhl3f Again, all I did was use GPSMapedit to change the 'type' of a few polys from 'unknown' to 'map coverage area'... then recompiled... Hope it helps, Brian

Hi, I can confirm that I know what the problem is, and am working on a fix. If you're impatient, and technically litterate, you can fix the problem yourself (you need to open the map files with GPS Map Edit, and delete the Map Coverage area entity type, and recompile it, afterwards you'll need to recompile the 'pv' file). I'd do it myself, but the fix needs to be applied to quite a few squares, and I'd like to get the problem actually fixed rather than applying a 'patchwork' fix to it. Dale Berta, I will admit it was not so much my impatience but the challenge to see if I could fix the one county file. I have a 'fixed' version of King and Snoho counties you're welcome to use. Just save it to where you installed the Ibycus maps and overwrite the file with this one. Here's my post from page 6: Thanks again Dale, hope the dog is getting better as well as your sleep. ;-) Hope it helps, Brian

For me the HC was/is MUCH more valuable than the 'memory' slot. The Hs lock on crazy fast and keep the locks in amazing places. 'course if you don't want her to start finding them faster than you........ ;-]

If you already have an etrex yellow, IMHO, you'd be better to get a H?? series with the 'High sensitivity' receiver. To me that would be a more important upgrade... 'course this all depends on the deal you can get for the cx... but I wouldn't pay much.... ;-) I have the Venture HC and and LOVE IT!!!! After about 20hrs off I can turn it on and have a lock within 40 seconds or so... it's crazy fast. I'm limited to 22mb of ram, but at $125ish... it's perfect for me.

Is there a specific area you are interested in? Or do you need the whole state?

Well, I did some digging and found out why some of the counties in Washington State don't work. King = 20053033 (bunch of 'unknown' type polys, I selected all 'unknown' and changed the type to 'Map Coverage Area' and it seems to work now, I've uploaded the modified version that seems to work http://adrive.com/public/16f506df44d229c6e...8b7cb63486.html ) Snohomish = 20053061 ('unknown' polys, modified version http://adrive.com/public/0b7a23e3e1f8c7f79...2433ba654.html) Skagit = 20053057 (all of 'Map Coverage Area' polys in the county are 'City Park' type... not sure how to fix that one without loosing all of the other parks) Whatcom = 20053073 (all of 'Map Coverage Area' polys in the county is a 'Golf Course'.... again not sure how to fix that...) If someone wants to use these 'modified' versions, simply copy my versions into the C:\Program Files\IbycusUSA\imgs files after you have extracted/installed the latest Ibycus13usa maps. I'm no expert and I'm sure Dale will make a 'real fix' but in the mean time at least these counties are usable for WA folks. ;-) Hope it helps!! Keep Cach'n...

UPDATED>>> Dale, Map downloaded and installed perfectly. Very very nice!! I did notice a few things with Washington state. No rush in fixing them... just minor things. ~when zoomed in 50mi or lower (when I can see the streets and such) I'm unable to click on King, Snohomish, Skagit, and Whatcom counties. ~somewhat related, if I zoom out to 70mi. I can then click on the counties to select them for upload. So far the accuracy is great!!! Thanks Again, Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ UPDATE: I was able to select and upload the counties in question above at the 70mi. zoom, however, those counties are blank on the GPS. Suspect the same would occur for snohomish, skagit, and whatcom counties.... PS. Hope your dog is doing well!!!

Dale, Sure appreciate your work and gifts. :-) Is there any way some of us could help? Either with this project or other 'needs'? Do you need any help hosting these files? PayPal account for donations? A "wish list" of ways we can show our appreciation?? Let us know... bg

FWIW, I have upgraded my venture HC to 2.7 and have not noticed this "exactly". I have noticed that 'at times' when I have 9-12 sats locked, and then I get WAAS D's on them, my epe will be a few feet 'greater' than without the WAAS data. I did find an interesting note on another website that might explain this.... "It seems that Garmin will favor differentially corrected satellites when at least four exist to the exclusion of regular satellites. If the four are in a poor geometric relationship the epe number, and possibly the accuracy of the solution, can be worse than it was with a regular GPS solution. " So I read this to mean that even though I have locked onto more than 4 sats (some with moderate signal gain as they are closer to the horizon...) The unit will take the 4 greatest strength signals (likely the sats just above my head...) and use those. Result: I'm able to get more precise readings of the data from the sats over my head, however, because they are so close together I have less accuracy than if I let the unit ignore the WAAS and use sats that are more spread out around me..... Not sure if that makes sense... but just a thought... How that all plays into the upgrade issue.... not sure.... Again, for what it's worth....

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So I'm learning this map making stuff and was able to convert a Washington State extract from Open Street Maps (1.2gigs) into .img format for Garmin. Since I only have 2gigs of RAM in my machine I had to split the state file in half. It's not bad. Western WA from coast to about W120' (about Vantage on I-90) is about a 10mb .img file. W120' east is about 4mb. Includes some water and rail data as well. You can find them and others here: http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/maplist.ph...ngton&cat=2

It should with no problem, however, it will take a bit longer to acquire a fix as it will be searching for sats that it's used to seeing in your home area. One way to speed up the process is once you power up the unit and you're looking at the sat. page, go to your menu and then choose 'New Location'. This will tell the GPS to skip looking for the ones it saw last and start searching for anything and everything.

Within that budget I'd 'highly' recommend the Garmin Venture HC. Incredible reception, color screen, compact, ect... I got mine from TheNerds.net for $122 +shipping, best price around. I tried a Magellan 210, but it's legacy now and there's not much support for it. So far I'm much happier with the Garmin. I will admit though that the Magellan basemap did have a few more roads than the Garmin base map... but it's not hard to upload your own road map data from places on the web. At your own risk of course. Hope it helps! bg Forgot to say that it also uses a 'mini-usb' port to connect to your computer. These 'mini-usb' cables are used for lots of stuff, phones, mp3 players, cameras, ect... so you don't have to worry about loosing it. ;-) Reasons you may want the next step up (Legend HCx or the like): ~Even with maps installed, it will not 'auto-route'. (ie. you can't put it on your dash and expect it to tell you "turn right at the next street...") ~Only 24mb of ram for maps and waypoints. Plenty for 'general' use. (ie. geocache waypoints are very small data wise and a map of all roads for Washington State is only about 6mb)