jackrr

Other GPS forums are reporting the same problems with the "upgraded?" 6.14.1 also. I'm not going to upgrade until I hear that they got the bugs worked out. What was Garmin thinking?

I have one. It definitely is easier to read the small print on the GPS. The downside is that optically it is not as clear as the bare GPS screen and there is some distortion. Under some conditions such as glare it is sometimes better not using the magnifier. The good thing is that it is very easy to flip the magnifier in and out of position. I find that I use the magnifier flipped into position most of the time and only in a few cases will flip it down and see only the GPS.

Its been awhile since we had a software update. With all the new units out I was beginning to think that Garmin had forgotten about us. If only they would come up with an update to make better use of the data card.

You never stop finding out new things with your GPSr. I use the Find>Auto Services>Select Category>Rest Areas/Tourist Info. Your method is far better as the Rest Area listings are not all mixed up with Tourist Info. It would be nice if Garmin had an independent Rest Area icon in the find menu. Whenever I'm on a trip I spend more time looking for Rest Areas then most of the other Find icons they have listed.

Good tip. I never realized you could do that. Very useful with Topo maps.

It looks good. Now I wish that they would upgrade Topo Canada. I wonder if the new Topo US autoroutes, the old Topo Canada does.

- good idea. How can I do it, turning my route into track? Thanks. Go to this site: www.softsolutions.be/GPS/Garmin/wingdb.htm It is a Dutch? site and you can't read anything, well at least I couldn't, you've got it made if your Dutch. Don't worry just click on the WinGDB 1.1 link which I think is highlighted, if not you'll see it on this page anyways. Download it, in its folder you'll see a wingdb.exe file, click on it and click on "run" in to next two windows that come up and the "route/track" conversion window opens which is all in English.

Turn your route into a track. You will have a path to follow in any one of several colours. There will be no autorouting at all. As a bonus you can turn several routes into tracks and all tracks will show on the GPSr screen at once instead of just one route.

I upgraded my 76CSx with the card in, no problems.

Thanks very much to the Groundspeak member who e-mailed me the WinGDB 1.1 program that converts routes to tracks and as a plus will also do the opposite. I do a lot of motorcycle riding on bush roads. Using Topo Canada which autoroutes it is very easy and quick to make a bunch of routes in Mapsource as compared to using the Track making tool which takes a steady hand on the mouse and is time consuming. Once you have a bunch of routes made, in a few seconds you can convert them to tracks with WinGDB and transfer them to your GPSr. Now all these tracks show up on the GPSr screen at once, as compared to just one route at a time. Very easy to see on the screen as compared to just the bare road on Topo Canada and no constant recalculating your route when you vary off course for a side trip.

My power button is not as high as the other buttons. This is normal. You have to press and hold the power key down for a few seconds before the unit will turn on, this is also normal.

Don't disable single maps. Hit the MENU button again and select to "Hide/Show" all of CN (or whatever map product). Jan I just tried it your way and it works way better. I should have asked my question a long time ago, instead of wasting time scrolling through all those maps. Thanks

When I want to access my Topo maps on the GPSr you have to turn off City Navigator. The problem is that I have to scroll through about 20 Topo maps before I reach the CN map I want to turn off. Has anyone found a quicker way of doing this? Is there a way to change the map order so CN is on the top of the list?

Is there a way to change a Route to a Track? I'm sure this has been asked before but I couldn't find anything using Search. It's easy and quick to make a Route with MapSource, but I like using Tracks rather then Routes on my GPSr.

I just noticed with my 2nd post that indents do not seem to work on this forum. To break things up you have to put in a blank line or white space as mentioned earlier.

Man give me a break, I have 3 paragraphs. How many do you want? I originally wrote this in open office and actually had my 3 paragraphs indented. It seems I lost my indents when I copied and pasted it to the forum. Before anyone nails me on this one, I made a mistake in naming my calculations and called sq", cu". I hope I have enough paragraphs in this reply. I didn't think you had to have a degree in writing to post a topic.

I have been wondering about screen magnifiers ever since I got my GPSr. There is very little written about them in the forums. In my experence, two things make it difficult to read the screen of my GPSr quickly (you can't keep your eyes off the road forever). These are glare/reflections and too small of a screen to see congested areas of a map. I used to have the face of my GPSr set perpendicular to my eyes, I found that by tilting the top back you could eliminate most of the glare and reflections. But there are many times when it is hard too quickly see what is on the screen because everything is such a small size. Thats when you realize why car systems have such large screens. Bigger is definitely better! Anyways I bit the bullet and decided to buy the Ram Screen Magnifier. It was $27.95 ($36.99 with tax & shipping) at GPScity Canada. The quality of it is OK, not a 10 out of 10, but just OK. There is distortion in the lens but you don't notice it much in use. A straight line will curve slightly but print is very easy to read. Your GPSr screen brightness and clarity is not quite as good when viewing through the magnifier but the increase in size makes up for that disadvantage. My GPSr screen is about 1.4375" X 2.125" = 3.05cu". When my GPSr is 2 5/8" from the magnifier, it increases the size to about 1.75" X 2.625" = 4.59cu". That is about a 150% increase in size. Although that does not seem like much it really does make a difference. It did make it easier to distinguish detail in congested areas of City Navigator and all print was way easier to read. One problem that crops up with the magnifier is that you now get glare and reflections on its screen, although as a plus it does seem to block some of the glare on the GPSr screen. I found that you can eliminate most of the reflections on the magnifier by tilting the top of it away from the GPSr instead of having the two perpendicular to each other. This is easy to do because the magnifier is hinged on the bottom. The hinge is great because if there is case were you are better off without the magnifier you can easily tilt it forward and have an unblocked view of your GPSr. The GPSr is still just as easy to put in or take out of my Ram mount when the magnifier is installed. Although I have preformed "aquafuzz's" mods on my mount (the ears on the bottom of the mount are cut off). Without those mods the magnifier would diffenately make removing the GPSr harder. One bonus of the magnifier is that I used to have to put a block under my GPSr mount to stop vibrations when driving, now the flex rod of the magnifier does the same thing so I can eliminate the block. It takes a little time to get the magnifier set up right in relation to your GPSr but once done you should never have to reset it. The magnifier comes shipped disassembled with no instructions. If you can't figure out how to put it together there are assembly instructions for it on Rams website. The big question is whether the magnifier is worth buying? I'd say that if you have no trouble reading the fine map print and you can quickly figure out congested areas of your map don't buy it. But if you have to stare at the GPSr screen for much longer than a quick glance to read and understand it, it might be worth buying. Personally I found that it was a help in some instances but I might have been better off without it in others. I have only had it for 1 day and have only used it while autorouting for about 1 hour. I diffenately need more time with it but I suspect I am better off with it. The quality of my attached pictures is not too good but it will give you an idea of what the magnifier is like when set up. The picture of the screen through the magnifier is worst than when viewing in real life, plus it is slightly out of focus as compared to the other picture.

As far as I'm concerned the mount is not suitable when it's that hard to remove/install your GPSr. I just about dropped mine on the floor several times trying to remove it. I tried klatch's mod first but the GPSr was still awkward to remove. After a lot of head scratching trying to find a better way of doing it I finally bit the bullet and did aquafuzz's more radical mod. I cut them corners right off just like he did. What a difference that made. The unit just slides in and out so easy now. I was concerned that it might slide out all by itself but so far so good. I'll have to go down some rougher roads and see what happens.

Thanks for the pictures aquafuzz & klatch. I'm going to go get the die grinder out right now.

The Ram mount that holds my GPSMAP 76CSx is very difficult to use when getting the GPSr in and out, especially out. Has anyone found a way to modify the mount to make it easier? Is the Garmin mount easier to use?

I have a 76CSx. When editing a waypoint name a pop up keyboard comes up. There are 4 characters that I cannot figure out what their function is. One is a funny arrow (←┘), the other three are all in a row to the right in the special character set that replaces the number set (= < >). Has anyone figured these out?

This is especially important on freeways. I tried putting a waypoint between the north and south lanes of a freeway so I could reverse the route for the way home. It didn't work very well. I ended up putting waypoints on both lanes and making two routes, one for going and one for returning.

I have a GPSMAP 76CSx and it is a great unit. Except for wishing it had a larger screen the only thing about it that frustrates me is trying to open the weather proof USB cover. It always takes a couple of minutes to open that darn thing. I just use my finger nail because I don't want to risk damaging the water proof seal, especially since I managed to submerge it once. Has anyone found some kind of trick to open this cover?

I went geocaching today and noticed the same thing.

I have NT installed in my 76CSx and it works great.