D0T-C0M

Oh and If you don't need the TOPO data in your maps, here's a tip. For a greatly improved refresh times in mapsend unclick the little "T" before saving the region to your harddrive. This will noticeably shorten those refresh times at the expense of losing the land elevation data (TOPO). I don't use the TOPO data so I dropped it. Try it it makes a world of difference.

you can control how much detail is shown at which resolution by changing the detail level from highest to lowest. If you want to customize how much map data is shown at each of the detail setting by configuring your export.cfg file located in the C:\program files\Magellan\MapSend Topo Canada\Map directory. The export.cfg file instructs the mapsend program to compile the maps to show or hide certain roads, rivers etc at a given detail level setting. I live in a rural area so it was important for me that the secondary roads and rivers be shown at even the lowest detail settings. Here is a copy of a pdf that explains it.

I second this

Sorry guys I might have to hold off a bit depending how much my Grizzly 660 is going to cost me. The crankshaft in it just went so I have a big bill to pay if I want it ready for hunting season. @sanramonhunter I emailed you back. @Geofevre what were you looking to get for your 500?

$75-$100 for a 500 in good used condition that comes with what was in the original box is what I would consider a good deal. You can get them for $130 new with extras on ebay.

I am pissed at the bad luck I have with my GPSes . I've lost my 2nd E600 in a river while out ATVing. Last weekend I lost my e600 after I put it in my pocket that had a hole in it. It must have fallen out while walking in the water without me knowing. Any good deals out there for a e600 or e500 in good condition (no screen scratches), please contact me here or through email darngtek@hotmail.com must accept paypal and have a decent post count here or ebay references. Thanks for reading.

@nightTracker well like I said Magellan's hardware is very good IMO. You will probably be satisfied until you need customer support then you'll be dragged through hell. The triton line is very good but they released it much too fast. They are much better with the latest firmware release but MAgellan is VERY VERY slow releasing firmware fixes.

Well I find the explorist line to be the best line up hardware wise IMO. You complain about having to move for the compass to work but what do you expect, you bought a 500LE. The explorist600 has a 3 axis compass that works like you describe in the Garmin. I give credit where credit is due but let's not bitch about stuff the you didn't buy. @trainlove, hey bud nice to see you posting here again. I trust you sorted things out with the forum management here. I've always respected your comments.

Magellan makes decent hardware I don't think many people would disagree. I still own my explorist600 and love it but its the rest of the company that sucks. I'm from Canada so I never had to talk to Magellan directly because Bill's Electronics was doing their warranty/repair work. They were top notch. I can 't say enough for them. I had a problem once with my explorist 600's joystick , I called Bill's and within 10 days I had a brand new unit in my hands and spent only 5 minutes on the phone. Then Bill's suddenly dropped Magellan stating irreconcilable differences on his website. I guess even Bill's got fed up. Then later after that, my explorist600 suddenly died and this is where my nightmare begins. I won't go through it again but I would dare say that if you put a poll up the majority would be dissatisfied with Magellan's customer support, not to mention Magellan's reputation of only releasing firmwares at the rate of almost once a year. The poll would be much higher if everybody hadn't all switched over to Gamin or to some other manufacturer.

Magellan is crap, Their customer support sucks big time. Their product engineers suck. They do not care whatsoever for the customers. They make good hardware but it takes forever and ever for them to release any firmware updates to fix major bugs that should have been fixed prior to releasing their products to the public. The major problems they have everywhere else in their company makes for a very unpleasant experience. I used to be a big magellan fan since owning a sportrak map , 3 explorists and a triton500. All of which I have sold except for one explorist600 which I have kept because the euro firmware works well but when it fails I will just chuck it in the garbage whether then wait 3 friggin months for service. I've switched to Garmin and they are the complete opposite of Magellan. Trainlove is right in every way. Heed his advise.

I would upgrade to the Euro version 5.2.57 . Its the best firmware to date. Shame on Magallen for not offering it to the north american models on their website. As for your problem, if it has completed the upload to the GPS by disconnecting the usb cable to your computer it should auto restart.

I have much experience with Magellan and from 1 to 10 they are -100. Their customer support seems to be on a different planet. Its really too bad because their hardware is actually is really good. I've switched over to Garmin with the purchase of my Nuvi660. I've called Garmin's customer support the first time and someone in english picked up the phone and took care of a problem registering my nuvi on my account that I was trying to setup online and the total call time lasted under 10 min. I called a second time inquiring about the new 2009 map updates and I was given the update for free even though I had bought my nuvi second hand. Garmin IMO are #1, #2, #3 all together. It's pretty rare that a customer is not well treated at Garmin.

A friend of mine wants a GPS that can do area calculations. I know the explorist600 I have can do it but was wondering if the Garmin handhelds can? If so which models?

The best and most popular torrent site would be thepiratebay . org Just be sure to select a torrent title with alot of the key words that most people would use to search for the maps like "garmin" "maps" etc..

Magellan makes excellent hardware, I got a new triton500 in exchange for a e600 that I sent out for warranty repair and so far I am satisfied with it. It does everything I want. Maybe I had low expectations from all the bad reports I heard of it and that might be why I like it. The only reason I would not buy or recommend a Magellan product is because of the REALLY REALLY bad customer service and their lack of product support in terms of timely firmware releases. If they fix all the bugs of this unit as they promise to do then the triton500 will be a very good GPS.

embra good call, That would be my guess as well. I could possibly be a corrupt basemap

Don't get me wrong Magellan has great hardware, its the firmware and customer support that is severely lacking. Magellan might update their firmware in their units maybe once or twice during its life cycle if your lucky. Just look at the explorist line. They can't even get WAAS without another update and now they are obsolete (good thing the european firmware fixes this). Their customer support just plain sucks. They have to re-think that aspect of their company if they want to succeed.

Well Magellan is trying to do better I believe but they are a disorganized group for sure. I sent out my e600 for repair and it was an ordeal. 1- took 90 min to get an RMA (very frustrating) for my out of warranty e600 costing $102 flat rate for repairs. 2- after unit received by Magellan I called 10 days after for RMA status and they couldn't find my RMA in the computer. another 30 minutes spent giving them my customer ID # and RMA and address and so forth. Agent said he found it and I should receive a new e600 within 7-10days 3- Called again after 10 days and this time the agent tells me that they are sending me a new triton500 to replace my e600 and it should take 7-10 more days. 4. Call again after 2 days to make sure everything is still in progress only to find that they never created a work order to send me a new Triton500. Agent creates one on the phone with me and tells me it can take 3 weeks because units are back ordered. 5. I call 10 days after to confirm everything is still on track. 6. Last week I receive a package and inside is a brand new e600. I think to myself that this is weird and I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a triton(maybe this was a good thing hearing about the present bugs they have). 7. The following week I get another box from Magellan and inside is a brand new Triton500. I am thrilled. After playing with the Triton500 for a week or so I find that the unit works very well except the battery life is quite poor. I do love the suspend mode that this unit has which makes powering it up a breeze. In summarizing, it was a very frustrating ordeal, I must have spent 3 or 4 hours on the phone with them that should have only taken a faction of the time. I think Magellan would do wonders in improving their customer support by bringing their call center to to north america instead of the middle east. The reps are very very hard to understand. Also their call center reps really need more training. From what I've seen they are a bit disorganized. It is ridiculous that it takes 90 minutes to get an RMA number.

Many have said the same thing. They really should just add like 10 bucks more to the price of the units and bring back customer support to the states. I'm not racist but I have to agree. After having to send my old explorist600 for repair, it was just a horrible experience. These call center people that they have hired are from the middle east and are sooooo hard to understand. You have to repeat and repeat over and over again simple words. For what its worth I agree that Magellan have to consider a change and invest some money in their customer support and also pump some money into their product support as well to get rid of those bugs.

The old Garmin 60CS and 76 (the ones that don't end in x) don't have the newer Sirf chip and do not hold a signal well. The newer ones such as 60CSx do. I have had many many magellan products and I am now in the process of switching over from Magellan and personally I do not encourage anyone to use Magellan products. They lost this loyal customer because of their lousy customer support which is really really reallllllllly bad and their product support sucks. The do not release timely updates if you are lucky you might get one once a year. The new triton series was promising but again they are full of bugs and needs some firmware update to be any good. I called Garmin once so far and I spoke to someone in english that was very helpful. I was not on hold for more the 30 sec. Garmin does have its bugs but they seem to try to address them by frequent firmware updates and the maps are fairly accurate. I would recommend the 60CSx for a handheld though the Colorado series is also an option in your price range.

Really? I'll have to look for that setting as I've never noticed it. I had a friend come over with his nuvi 250 (my nuvi660 comes in on monday) and I couldn't find where to turn off topo contours like red90 suggested but that being said the contours were much less noticeable in the GPS mainly because in mapsource you can see much more of the map so it looks way cluttered but in the GPS you only see a small portion of the map so its not as bad. I will try frig with this some more to see if I can't remove them from the map. Ibycus by using the free compiler what would be the difference between my freshly compiled maps and your maps compiled with your unlocked compiler? I know the free version doesn't do POIs searching and routing but I believe your topo don't have that yet for my area. I'm pertty sure those are things I wouldn't use anyways while using topo maps. Thanks for all the tips. I wouldn't mind doing the maps of my local golf course hehehe.

Easiest way to solve this, is to select all elements with Type 0x0 GPSMapEdit, and change them to Type 0x6. Type 0 used to be an allowed datatype. Its not any more due to it looking really crummy on certain units. Dale Well that is really going to be alot of work. Its easy to delete both types of elevation contours but there's hundreds of these type=0x0 in the .mp file Is there an easier way just to hide the contour polygons? Maybe creating zoom level that is so far away. I'll have to check this TVP file to see if it is going to save me some work. Maybe Ibycus if you have a private method of doing this that would be fairly easy I would donate something for your troubles.

PLease explain a little, what is a TYP file and how is this going to help me hide the topo contours?

@Ibycus I see that in cgpsmapper all I have to do is select by type and delete of the topo contour lines very fast but when I deleted the object types pertaining to the elevation contour lines(brown dash and solid brown lines) and saved the file *.mp When I run the command "cgpsmapper ac filename.mp" I get the following error "E038: Type of element cannot be 0" , Any idea why? After I get rid of this error, can you email your test_pv.txt file so that when I compile my map, it will be the same as all your maps.

GPSMapEdit 1.0.40.4 - Shareware Version I only really use this peripherally. Mostly I've replaced the functionality of this with my own programs. Do still use for viewing files though. cgpsmapper 0095 March 4th - Routable Version (The author gave me a good deal because I'm not selling the maps), you should be able to use the shareware version. If you re-upload my maps to mapcenter, I ask only that you keep the text of your map description similar to the text description of mine, and put similar use restrictions on it (non-commercial, private use only) hummm I think the free version will do what I want I think if not I'll use the online compiler and not change your map description will remain intact. Thanks for the permission to re-post your maps if I need to use the online compiler