Ken in Regina

Yep, you can mix and match pretty much whatever you want. On my Legend HCx I currently have a mapset that contains some City Navigator North America, all of Metroguide Canada, some Ibycus Canadian topo and a bit of Topo Canada, plus two ATV trail overlay maps. Saves having to worry about whether I'll have what I need when I get wherever I'm going (which I'm not always sure of). ...ken...

Larry, it looks like the problem is automatic recalculation, not that insufficient data gets into the GPX file. I don't know what the Oregon saves in the GPX file (it's easy enough to look .. it's just a text file that can be viewed in any text editor like Notepad) because I have a Legend. But I've saved and examined a number of route files in GPX format from Mapsource and I can tell you that you will be astonished at how detailed the data is in the GPX file that Mapsource saves, even a route between just two waypoints. Save a route from Mapsource and open the GPX file with Notepad. You should see a massive amount of routing detail between the start and end waypoints. If that exact route is not being used when the GPX file is copied to the OR, that must mean the OR is ignoring it and automatically recalcing. That's not good behaviour!! Just out of curiousity can you take a peek at a route GPX file saved from the OR and tell us if it's saving out what looks like a detailed route or if it just saves out the start and end waypoints? It will be pretty obvious when you look at it. Just look in the file for the names of the starting and ending waypoints. If it's only saving them and no route details they will be pretty close together with not too much other junk between them. If the route details are being saved you'll see a file similar to what Mapsource saves, with lots of stuff between the name of the starting waypoint and the name of the ending waypoint. ...ken...

You should be able to do both. Use the TRANSFER menu in Mapsource. "Send to device" will let you transfer a route to the Nuvi. Do NOT recalculate the route after you transfer it to the Nuvi if you want to keep the exact route from Mapsource. (You should probably rename the route before you transfer it to the Nuvi -- right-click > Properties on the route in the Routes tab.) I don't know if the Nuvi has a limit on route name length. Mapsource normally autonames the route and sometimes it can make awfully long names that some devices don't like.) "Receive from device" will let you transfer a route from the Nuvi. Again, do NOT recalculate the route in Mapsource if you want to keep the exact route from the Nuvi. Now you can save that route as a GPX file which you should be able to use on Geocaching.com. I don't have a Nuvi so I can't guarantee that the Nuvi won't automatically recalc a route from Mapsource when you transfer it to the Nuvi or the first time you try to use the route. I also have not tested the procedure going the other way so I can't guarantee that Mapsource won't recalc the route from the Nuvi either when it's transfered up or when it saves to the GPX file. (I've transfered lots of routes in both directions. I've just never checked to see if it stays the same or gets automatically recalculated at either end after the transfer.) But it's easy enough for you to check. You just need the procedure above and it's really quite easy once you do it a time or two. ...ken...

Agreed, but do the Vista 32 bit drivers work with 32 bit windows 7? Yep, they do. If you think of Windows 7 as "Vista SP3" you've pretty much got it cased. ...ken...

Those are just the names Navteq has chosen for those particular map segments. They don't mean anything. If it will make you feel more comfortable, select all of 2008 and make a note of the number of maps and the size. Then clear that and select all of 2010.3 and compare the number of maps and the size to 2008. Both numbers should be the same or larger in 2010.3 I don't have 2008 but I have 2009. Here are my numbers: 2009NT - 74 maps - 1099.5 MB 2010.1NT update - 123 maps - 1133.0 MB For what it's worth, the map segment names in 2009 are still mainly state related names. In 2010.1 they change the naming to a combination of some state names and a lot of city names for the segments. ...ken...

Make sure you have the SD card plugged into the reader when you click to "TRANSFER > Send To Device". If you have an SD card plugged in, Mapsource will find it and it will be listed in the same dropdown list that your Vista is listed. It will show with a hard drive letter designation (eg. F: or whatever). Just select it instead of the Vista and you'll be cooking. By the way, I hope you saw my note in the other thread that you do not need to load both versions of CNNA. So that should also minimize your headaches if you don't have an awfully good reason for also wanting to load 2008. ...ken...

You do NOT have to have both versions of City Navigator installed. Unless you have a very specific reason for doing so, it's a complete waste of time and space. Your Vista will work just fine with a combination of CNNA 2010.3 and the topo segments you need. You can leave CNNA 2008 on the PC if you want, but there's no need to try to stuff it onto the Vista along with 2010. 2010.3 is complete by itself. ...ken...

First we should establish with version of Windows 7 grouchmedic has. grouchymedic, is it the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version? It makes a really big difference. ...ken...

Do you have the software version on your Vista that supports maps larger than 2GB? It seems to me that earlier releases of the HCx units did not support maps larger than 2GB. I could be wrong, but that might be a problem. Just the two CNNA mapsets are over 2.2GB without any topo selections. As was already mentioned, you also need to pay attention to the limit of the number of maps you load. 2025 was mentioned and I think that's right. It's easy to hit that with the topos. The suggestion of putting your card in a card reader to load the maps is an excellent one. I won't do it any other way. Too many potential headaches and it takes way too long the other way. ...ken...

I think they should call it "April Fool", not "Black Friday". They have listed a Garmin GPS10 bluetooth receiver (not GPS10X) bundled with: - City Select maps - nRoute nav software for PC - Que nav software for Windows Mobile The joke? They want $129.95 for it!!! Another joke? The customer reviews are dated December 31, 1969. (Hint: the first experimental GPS satellite didn't fly until 1978.) ...ken...

You have purchased a good charger. You will likely find that a good charger will make more difference in your satisfaction with rechargables than your battery selection. Learn how to use its features and you will be able to get a surprising amount of life out of even your old batteries. For instance, my MAHA (Powerex) 9000 has a "Breakin" feature on it. I never thought to use it on my older batteries (who nees to "break in" an older battery??) until just last week as a result of something someone said in one of these two threads on rechargable batteries here. I took a closer look at the documentation and discovered it's also good for refreshing older batteries. I have now run eight of my older Sanyos through that cycle. They were sitting in a tin waiting for recycling. Seven of them are back in service. Their charge levels aren't what they were when they were new (1800mAh versus rated at 2300) but they're perfect for use in my computer mice and even the digital camera when it's just being used around the house for snapshooting the grandkids. ...ken...

Just FYI, GPSCITY.CA has Topo Canada DVD on sale this week for $99. That's a pretty good buy. I agree with Red90. I own both, too, and my experience is the same. City Navigator is a bit better (a little more up to date) for city street grids in the larger cities. Topo Canada blows it away in almost every other way. Street grids in smaller cities and towns, secondary roads, forestry roads, trails, and geographic features like hydrology (lakes, rivers, streams). It even has more POIs in Canada. Topo Canada has all the road features (address database, POI database, etc.) of Metroguide Canada plus topographic features. Topo Canada does not have any coverage outside Canada. ...ken...

Thanks fegan. Good catch. Fingers got ahead of the brain. Apologies to anyone I managed to confuse. ...ken...

Good tip, Splashy. Of course the opposite is just as easy. If it's getting kinda cluttered and it would be easier to work with just a track or two, you can use the same procedure to copy/paste just the ones you want into a seperate smaller file. For anyone who is not comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts, just use the EDIT menu Copy (Ctrl-X) and Paste (Ctrl-V) commands. ...ken...

What TotemLake said. Gotta get those year-end sales numbers up, you know. ...ken...

Actually it's not easier to crunch the figures for that, for a number of reasons. First, because there is too much "cost" information that is simply not available. I'm refering to the costs that I mentioned in my previous post. But, even if you restrict the costs to the price (not the same as cost, by the way) of buying the alkalines versus the price of buying charger and rechargables and the price of charging them, if you use them for exactly the same things and extend that out over a reasonable period of time, I don't see it doing much more than breaking even. The biggest mistake people make when they use even that extremely narrow view is that whether they assume 1000 recharges (as the manufacturer would like you to believe) or 250 recharges (taking a pessimistic view) they make the mistake of assuming one recharge of a rechargable equals the depletion of one alkaline. In my experience that's just not the case. In virtually every use I have .. camera, GPS, whatever .. the alkalines outlast a single charge of even the best rechargables by a significant margin. I never see that factored into these narrow "economic" comparisons. It's always one charge equals one alkaline. I think a more realistic ratio of charge cycles to alkaline battery depletions would kill even such a narrow economic comparison. Or at worst put them pretty close to even. The other factor that doesn't get included is that if you don't use the rechargables, or the devices they are in, frequently you have to recharge them anyway. I use my camera in spurts. Lots of pictures for a birthday or a vacation trip. Then it will sit for weeks. Even in this kind of usage I can get about the same number of pictures out of a set of alkalines versus if I'm using the camera continuously until the batteries are drained. That's not true for rechargables. Even the best of the new NiMH rechargables, like the Sanyo Eneloops, still drain when just sitting, either in the device or not. So in my style of usage, it takes a number of recharges of a rechargable to equal the depletion life of one alkaline. That adds to the charging cost and increases the ratio of charges to single battery depletion even more. So even if you stick with a very narrow "economic" view, but do it correctly, it's not at all obvious that there's a good general case for rechargables. My bigger issue is that most people don't even stop to think about it. They succumb to the conventional wisdom that it's either better for the environment somehow or that it's cheaper or maybe both. I haven't been able to find anything definitive and when I think about the bigger picture, whether economical or ecological, the very best I can imagine seems to come out about 50/50. I can't find anything compelling either way. I wish I could. Something independent of the hyperbole from the manufacturers' advertising departments on the one side and the eco-wingnuts on the other. ...ken...

I asked because it's not the least bit obvious to me. So there might be a few less rechargables going into the landfill than alkalines. But alkalines have been reengineered so they have much lower toxicity since 1997. It is considered safe to dispose of them in landfills (I know, we have stupid standards for what we allow in landfills but that's a whole other discussion.) The point is that common alkalines are the only ones that are considered safe to dispose of rather than recycle. (The downside is, of course, that that takes the pressure off recycling of alkalines.) The balancing factors against rechargables are the electricity used in recharging. Don't just think of the trickle of electricity that ultimately gets stuffed into the battery. Think about how much has to get generated at that dirty old coal-burning power plant in order to offset the losses in the transmission lines and the charger electronics before it gets into the battery. And the resources used to build the chargers. That includes all the materials used in the chargers PLUS the energy to manufacture the chargers AND the energy to ship them to wherever you bought it. All the rechargables and chargers end up in the landfills, too. And the rechargables are seriously toxic as are some of the materials in the chargers. If I look at the battery displays in most stores that sell rechargables, I see alkalines packaged with ... alkalines. But I see rechargable batteries packaged with those cheap junk chargers. In many stores you can only buy the batteries packaged with yet another charger that you don't need. Or packaged with C and D size adapters that you don't need. And all the extra packaging and the other bits that we don't need end up in the landfill. Overall, when I look at the energy and resources used for alkalines versus rechargables and their chargers, cradle to grave, it looks like a wash to me. I would like to be responsible, so I certainly welcome something persuasive. Either way. Preferably from somewhere credible and with numbers and which looks at the whole picture. ...ken...

I'm not sure I understand this. How are rechargables more environmentally friendly? ...ken...

I didn't have much luck with my Powerex 2700s. After only a few months at least half of them would not charge up to the level that some of my really old Sanyos do. Even the good ones don't much like to charge. To get a decent charge I have to cycle them or run them through Breakin. I am really disappointed. I like the Powerex (Maha) charger. It has allowed me to get months more service out of my Sanyos. And it allows me to at least keep some of the Powerex 2700s going. ...ken...

I have no firsthand experience because it's not available for the Legend HCx. What I understand from what I've read so far is that there are some issues that are being actively worked on by Garmin and possibly some things that will turn out to be limitations when the dust settles. But it's so new to the Garmin models that it's way too early to tell what it's going to be when it grows up. My only point was that comparisons oughta be apples to apples and comparing a Vista HCx to a PN-40 isn't. That's not a criticism of either brand. Just me expressing my puzzlement why anyone would do a comparison like that in the first place. ...ken...

It is actually North America - With T8 you now have Canada, Mexico and U.S. road detail. They just released Canada Topo downloads to the $30/year imagery. I have Street Atlas 2010 and if Topo 8 has the same road coverage, the Canadian street and address detail are still not very good compared to products based on Navteq or TeleAtlas data. As for the Canada Topo downloads you mentioned, aren't they raster images? I wonder why people insist on comparing the eTrex Vista HCx to the PN-30/40. They really should be comparing with Garmin models that fully support caching and raster images like the DeLorme. Or to put it another way, if you want the features the PN-40 has then you should find a Garmin model(s) that also has them and that's what should be compared. I'm not a big cacher so maps are the deal breaker for me. For the little caching I do I don't mind using my MyGarmin account to load the cache location directly into my eTrex Legend HCx and cut/paste the hints into the memopad on my PDA. Your mileage may vary, of course. ...ken...

Good point. Thanks for the clarification. ...ken...

If you live and operate in the US then you can consider both options. If you do not live and/or operate in the US forget the DeLorme unless you are really into making your own maps. ...ken...

Hey Pete, Thanks for that history and tutorial. Turns out I've been using my MAHA 9000 pretty much bassackwards for the way I use my batteries. I have a few that I wasn't happy with the recharge results. Now, instead of tossing them out I'll put them through a nice gentle "Break In" session (0.1C "shaping" exercise) and see what the charger says about them after that. I will also set my charge rate much much lower than I have been. I've been using the charger almost like a quick charger but there's no way I need to quick charge them. I've got lots of batteries and my biggest problem is that they sit for sometimes fairly long periods between uses. That's why I've been getting a few Eneloops as my older batteries get retired. I guess my strategy should be fewer batteries and just keep cycling them through the "Break In" cycle when they aren't being used, instead of just leaving them sit. Any additional thoughts on battery management when they are not being used? ...ken...

Yeah, that's exactly what Chuy! described how to do in Mapsource a couple of posts before yours. Yours is a good solution if you are not a Garmin user. But if you are, Mapsource saves having to upload and the track editing tools work very well and very quickly. Tracing a track as you described is dead simple and fast. ...ken...