rickertk

As far as the GPS in a pocket goes, was it a shorts pocket or a jersey pocket? If it's a shorts pocket, I agree that reception is likely to be poor there. I've had very good reception in a jersey pocket facing outwards though, or inside my Camebak when I'm riding with that. Around the neck is going to be facing the wrong way on a bike. Handlebar mounts are the best for seeing the GPS while riding, although with my GPS I have to be careful not to jar it too much. Keith

I think ExpertGPS can also do what you want, and you can get a 30-day trial. Keith

I think you should find that the VistaC will perform essentially identically to the LegendC on holding a track and satellite reception. I've got one and I'm very happy with it. Keith

You can set the Follow Road options to route for a Bicycle. This will keep you off of limited access freeways, and it will give ETA's for a much lower speed than for a car. (When I'm riding by myself, it's ridiculously slow compared to what I'm actually doing). However, it may or may not do a good job of picking a good route if you leave it to it's own devices. It could well pick a lot of very busy (but not limited-access freeway) roads. I've used a VistaC (similar firmware), but almost all the routes I've done I've picked the route myself from a map or someone's cue sheet, added a lot of via points, and just had the unit running so I could remember all the turns and get guidance if I had to detour. Keith

You might also need to check that your routing options on the unit are set correctly - if you're set to generate routes for a car, and the trails are somehow flagged as pedestrian only, it also might not work. Making sure you downloaded the routing info is the most likely problem, though. Keith

Did you try navigating the routes? If the routable trails are anything like on-road routing, the route won't be calculated along the trails until you do a navigation on them. Keith

RAM mount for cycling (as in push-bike)? The Garmin handle bar mount is probably sufficient - unless the dad has a really stiff neck! Sure, the precision and 'under tree cover' isn't as good on the Quests as the new boxes - but I'm pretty sure it's good enough for cycling... ... and unlike the GPSMAP60SCx (current s/w release) you can down load proper routes with directions to the Quest, which it will remember and replay. Might be important for a cyclist where avoiding a hill is more important that fast roads / shortest distance. I've thought about the RAM mounts for the bicycle - I would like improved vibration resistance over the Garmin mounts. However, I don't like the long arm of the mount (too bulky for my tastes on the handlebars), nor am I wild about the rail mount itself. It's a single narrow steel clamp I think could be problematic on a light bicycle handlebar - I would worry about cracks or other issues with the lightweight aluminum and carbon fiber handlebars. As far as the Quest and routing goes - are you saying that the Quest does not recalculate from Mapsource calculated routes? If true, I wasn't aware of that. I have heard that they have a few additional routing features that the 60csx and other models don't have. However, IME, good bicycle routes on a GPS require lots of via points, regardless of whether calculated in Mapsource or on the GPS itself, and also a lot of information about what the rider is looking for in a route which is well beyond what any device can deliver automatically. Keith

Take a look at the physical size of the units and his handlebars. I've got the VistaC, and it's a bit big but workable on the handlebars. I'd be a bit less thrilled about any of the larger units. Auto-routing is nice on the bike, but I don't find myself really missing voice prompting (whereas if I drive with the VistaC I can see how it would be nice). I bought this mostly for biking, and I've been very happy with it. I do know someone who runs the original Quest and is also happy with it, but he runs a real techno-shop on his handlebars, whereas I like a nice clean look. (If I'm just recording tracks and not routing, I actually just put the GPSr in a jersey pocket most of the time). Keith

If the 60Csx is like the VistaC, you can add via points to a route on the unit itself, but it's not totally straightforward. I don't think you can add one during navigation though, which may be what you are asking about. When not navigating, you can add via points either on the map, or if you have POI/address/waypoints, you can add them that way. To add them on the map, you have to click on one of the existing route points, and it brings up a menu which includes the item add turns, which you can use to click on roads to add a turn. You can also add points from the list of points. Usually while navigating if I know an alternate preferred route I just go that way, and let the GPSr recalculate and it usually figures it out. Keith

I'm not sure that comparing vertical absolute altitude against a benchmark is a useful way to check the altimeter, unless you've recently calibrated against another point. It is inherent to the design of barometric altimeters that absolute accuracy will suffer without calibration. OTOH, I think that the barometric altimeters will probably be superior for relative accuracy - if what I want to know is not that point A is at X feet of elevation, but that point B is Y feet higher than point A. I'll weigh in with the guys who support the altimeter for vertical data. I've seen tracks from GPS elevation only plots, and they often feature a lot of high-frequency noise (altitude spikes up and down), and some huge vertical spikes. This is not a good way to get vertical trip data, and/or compare track elevation data. I don't have side-by-side comparisons, not having a similar non-sensor equipped GPS to get track data on an identical trip, but it might be fun to do that if I find someone with a LegendC. One thing it's certain you do gain with the Garmin's with sensors is the ability to see the track profile on the unit itself. Keith

If you're running an older version of Mapsource, I would recommend that you upgrade to version 6.10 or higher (I think it's 6.11 now), which has a join tracks tool. You basically pick the join tracks item from the menus, with one track selected from the list, and point the cursor at the beginning or end of the next track you want to join it to. If you have a long trip with several interruptions, you can join them into a single track very quickly with this tool. Keith

If you download Mapsource without a product installed, it doesn't really want to install. Although it doesn't have any detail maps, Trip and Waypoint Manager counts as a product for these purposes. Keith

FWIW, I have a VistaC, and I've noticed a similar behavior. A powered hub and one cable works ok for powering the GPS, and usually works fine for waypoint/track/route transfers. However, map transfers were generally unreliable here, but became much more reliable with a different cable/port combination. Keith

I think you may misunderstand what's supposed to happen here. A route is nothing but an ordered sequence of locations (waypoints, via points, there are many things you could call them.). Mapsource, with the relevant mapsets installed, will automatically compute the point-to-point connections following roads, and display the route that way. NG Topo doesn't know about the roads, and will only display straight line connections. Your 76csx does know about the roads (assuming you have City Nav. installed), but won't automatically compute a road based route - it will show a straight line route first off. However, if you begin navigating that route with the follow roads option, it will then recompute that route following the roads, and will display it that way. Keith

For the NorthAmerica products, City Select/City Navigator include routing data for the GPS, so the GPS can route you along roads to a destination. Metroguide does not - it will route on a PC, but on the GPSr it cannot provide turn-bu-turn directions to a destination. To forestall the inevitable question, City Select and City Navigator are nearly identical products, with the largest difference being the size of the map segments are larger in CN. If you are using the memory card that came with your LegendCx, I would for now recommend CS (if you can find it). Keith

Fair enough; however, I think that the PDA + software is going to be much more of the cost of a PDA driving solution than a BT or card based GPS receiver for a GPS/PDA combination.

USB is probably going to be problematic; you'd first need a PDA that can be a USB host (not many); then you'd need enough of a driver to talk to the GPS for realtime location data. The serial port may work with the correct PDA and software. Someone who's more familiar with PDA GPS software might be able to help you. The bigger question: why do you want to do this? You can either a) run CS/CN on the 60cx and autoroute that way, or use a PDA/GPS combo that works directly. Keith

Within Mapsource, you can also apply a filter to reduce the number of track points without losing the time data, if you just want to reduce the number of points so that they are further spaced out. You could also adjust the trackpoint sampling on the GPS itself so that you get fewer trackpoints in your active log to start with. Keith

As long as you don't need more than the 10,000 points of active tracklog, the solution is just not to save the tracklog. You can download the active tracklog to Mapsource (or Topofusion), and work with that directly. Keith

Trip and Waypoint Manager is Mapsource - but just the core program, there are no maps that can be downloaded to the unit. You've got yourself a pretty nice little unit there (at a fabulous price); I'd say that the only reasons to get something better would be if you really run into a need. (If you travel widely without a computer, and so need more memory for maps, for example). Keith

Just one quick point: The altimeter is important to me, because I'm interested in getting good relative elevation data with my tracklog. I've seen GPS elevation tracklogs, and they seem to have more high frequency noise with the occasional transient spike; barometric altimeter tracklogs seem much smoother (only talking about the vertical profile here). One thing a separate altimeter can't do for you is put data back into your tracklog. So if you just want to know how high you are at any particular moment, the separate altimeter will be fine. Keith

The first is a well known bug for these units. The accuracy thing - are you describing what the accuracy on the unit says, or by comparison to a benchmark? It's been observed by a lot of people here that the Sirf based Garmins seem to be a lot more conservative on the EPE calculations, although the actual accuracy will be similar or better. WAAS is probably mostly due to your location - most of the NE US does not have good WAAS coverage (particularly from the ground) right now. I used to get good WAAS signals on my VistaC, but not currently. Keith

The magnetic field from a wheel magnet is pretty negligible. OTOH, if you've got steel handlebars or another major steel component, it will definitely mess up the compass, but no worse than if it hadn't been calibrated. As far as the OP's observations: when you're above a certain speed, the GPS won't use the magnetic compass, so that shouldn't have been an issue. When you say that the map heading indicator was pointing off your direction and the compass was useless, was the GPS aligned with your direction of travel? I'm hard pressed to explain your observation; I've had my GPS on my handlebars plenty with no odd effects on map heading except sometimes when standing still (if the compass was not well calibrated). Keith

The compass is involved because with it, the GPS can detect (or thinks it can, at any rate), the direction you're facing. In that sense, it can tell that you've turned around and adjust the map to compensate. The problems come either when the unit's compass is not calibrated (so it thinks you're facing in a different direction) or because the compass is very sensitive to tilt, as you have discovered. These same issues would also affect the Vista, which also has an internal compass. Keith

Yes, the LegendC and Cx support auto-routing with the correct mapset loaded. The original, black and white Legend does not.