park2

Make sure you don't have any other s/w running that may grab serial ports (like Palm or PDA sync s/w or Hyperterm) Also, make sure the drivers for the USB adaptor are installed (I know that sounds obvious but I once had a coworker's USB port that was really flakey, it would work with some apps & not others until the drivers were installed) Usually they have to be installed before the first time the adaptor was plugged in. If it has been plugged in, go into device manager & delete it & start again.

You could have the coordinate format set differently? GC shows degrees Minutes.decimal minutes and maybe you have deg min sec or deg.decimal degree

The xl supports an extrnal antenna. Putting one up on a tall pole would fix most canopy problems.

DC adaptors are cheaper but most only put out your vehicle voltage or lower. My laptop specs 16V DC in and won't reliably charge from the ~13.5 from a lighter when the vehicle is running (and less when stopped). You can buy a dandy 300 or 400W invertor cheap these days and that's plenty o' power for a laptop.

We were camping in Yellowstone a few years back (6+) and they were allowed from 8-8 which is still obnoxious but better then 11PM. At 8:00:02 PM the rangers were knocking on doors to tell people to turn them off, so that was nice. Last month we were sailing 100km NW of Vancouver and 9PM a big powerboat pulls into the anchorage and runs their genset for an hour to run the washer/dryer/oven/? I guess. Then at 8AM it fired up again so they could have hot water & make breakfast. Only 1 night out of 6 on the boat, so it could'a been worse. Amazingly annoying, do people really care that little about their impact on others?

Nope, you're missing nothing, Garmin removed that function from 6.8. They hope people move over to nRoute for the real time tracking. (nRoute is free but I like MapSource) I've kept the old version on my laptop as a result.

Datum would be my first thought too. Second would be that you changed DM.M to DMS or D.ddd in the position format. It can look quite close and has fooled me on occasion.

yep.. easiest way is to get them into MS Paint, then stretch/skew so they are 16x16 pixels (yes, tiny) then save in MyDocuments/MyGarmin/Custom Waypoint Symbols as ###.bmp (or is it Waypoint Symbol ###.bmp) where ### is from 000 to 063 Its been a year since I did this but should be pretty close

I got some scratches out of my 76CS but discovered I also removed what was probably an anti-glare coating. The screen is much shinier now and more fussy about being perpendicular to my eyes. I kinda noticed that as I was sanding (1000 grit or something stupid like that) then polishing (with 2 grits of paste) that two seperate layers of stuff were coming off of the lens so I had to expand out my sanding so it was all taken off evenly. In the future.. I'd live with the scratches unless they were *real* bad

One of the older Trimble portable units had a 1pps output pin that went active for a brief period (few mS?) and it was spec'd to within 1uS accuracy. As the other posters correctly pointed out, screens back then could have errors of over a second depending on processor loading, but this pin was designed to still give users high accuracy. To use it, you would have to 'read' (with a processor) the time on the other comm pins and that time was exactly valid when the 1pps pin went active

Datum and format are actually two different settings. Make sure your datum is set to WGS84 Make sure your position format is set to degrees minutes/decimal minutes (it is surprising how much DD MM.mmm can look like DD.ddddd)

If you're both using Mapsource, that will work & save you the learning curve of new s/w. Hook up your GPS and hit the 'Receive From Device' button. Select Tracks only (or everything if you want). Optional step here: delete all the tracks except the one you covering the wallet area to make file smaller. Then in MapSource, File/Send Mail will e-mail the contents to your bud. He receives the e-mail. Double clicks on the attachment, Mapsource opens. Hit 'Send To Device' with his GPS connected and voila! its in.

A buddy put all the red light cameras in Winnipeg in his. A little reminder to resist the temptation.

Does you laptop have a 802.11 card? If not, I'd buy a PCMCIA one. Many hotels offer it for free. If not, it's amazing how many places you can find an open router.

Topo Canada isn't 'locked', I think the code they are referring to is just the operating firmware?

I never noticed that before, my Garmin GPSMap76S had 24MB but the non-S are only 8MB

Thanks hhl. D'oh. 3 years I've used MapSource and never figured that out. I wanted to do just that on several occasions and had to use Streets & Trips.

nRoute - a cool PC based program that gives you routing with voice prompts out your PC speakers as you drive. To avoid outrageous extention cord bills, I reccommend a laptop . To use it you need to have Mapsource and some maps (Topo, MetroGuide) already installed. You also need to be using a Garmin receiver as it only uses Garmins proprietary protocol. It is a free download from garmin nRoute download page

I'm guessing that SA isn't looking for Garmins propritary protocol which is the only data stream that will come out the 60s USB port. In fact, I don't think Garmin data transmitts unless the program sends a request. You may well need a Garmin 60 serial cable and (if your laptop doesn't have a serial port, you'll need to buy a USB serial port adaptor thingee). THEN, in Main Menu/Interface, set the serial port to NMEA (3rd from top I believe). You may need to tell SA it is looking for a NMEA data on serial xx. XX being what ever com port the USB/Serial device defines itself.

I had a 76 for 1.5 years and upgraded to a 76CS (color). I considered a 60CS but I was so happy with the 76, I bought the 76CS. Nice receiver, easy to use, good screen & resolution, enough memory. Have Fun!

No, by re-upgrading you are overwriting the code in the receiver (the code that MeMap adjusts). I think I remember the reason it doesn't work in some models is they changed to a graphics file rather then text or had to compress it to save space or something

Klatch: Well done, Thanks! I hadn't run across that. It was the only thing I didn't like about 6.5

I knew that was going to happen

Double click on the track so you get the track properties box up. You'll see a list of all the points that make up the track. In Mapsource 6.3 as you scroll along the list of points, highlighting one (or hold down shift to highlight multiple points), you will see those segments turn blue on your map. Hit delete key as needed. You can delete the whole track. Just have no track properties box open, highlight the track name in the left side window and hit delete. You can also cut/paste these highlighted points from one track to another, etc. Cut some out, invert the rest, paste back in, etc.. Here's the tricky part, the new Mapsource 6.5 does not highlight the segment you are on, where as 6.3 did. So you can't tell what points you are deleting. (glad I still have 6.3 working still) I sent Garmin an e-mail last week asking wassup AND NO ANSWER

Trivia for the day..... Pin finders do work well for finding catch basins and curb valves for water & wastewater but are rarely used to locate buried pipes or cable. A nice smooth pipe doesn't make much of a magnetic anomolie and the relative short depth ability of pin finders limits their usefulness. The proper tool works on a different principle and is called a utility (or pipe & cable) locator. You get much more depth (7m+ is pretty common), can find the copper tracer wire common with plastic distribution gas lines as well as other non-ferrous wires and cables. With a sonde (water-proof transmitter) you can also find plastic pipes & ducts.