ar_kayaker

There doesn'tseem to be a way to build a pocket query that includes BM's, much less includes only BM's. Is there a reason for this or am I just looking in the wrong place? AR_kayaker

Okay, I'll give you the quick and dirty way first then: You'll need at least a DB9 connector (I scrounged one from an old serial port mouse I hadn't thrown out yet) to which you need to connect three wires. (My wires were already connected and color coded because of my connector source) Get a stretch of solid-core phone wire (four wires external use) or other wire of at least 26 gauge. It doesn't matter what colors (or none) that you use as long at you know which one is which when you connect them. If you use other colors just substitute the colorsyou use for the ones in these directions. Connect the green wire to pin 5, the red wire to pin 3, and the black wire to pin 2. (If you don't know which pin is which consult page 72 in the sportrak manual, which is available in PDF form on magellan's website) After you have wires connected to the DB9 connector strip a little (1/4") of insulation off the other end. The other end of the wires will go INSIDE the GPSr under some thumbscrews (or you might try taping them to the contacts on the outside I personally would very much NOT reccomend the tape method when upgrading the firmware, if a wire comes loose during the upgrade you might end up with a paper-weight) Take the back off the GPSr and look at the back of the contacts. With the batteries at the bottom looking at the INSIDE from left to right you should have Orange, White, Blue, Yellow. They might have used different colors in different year/models so just just stick with left to right.... Lossen the leftmost screw and slip the end of the black wire (pin 2) under it, then retighten making sure the wire stays under the screw, repeat with the second from the left and the green wire (pin 5) and then the one on the far right gets the red wire (pin 3). Remember these are looking from the inside. If you use the tape method go from right to left instead. Plug it into your computer, power it up and test the connections by uploading a map or some waypoints. (you may need to configure your computers serial port first.) Once you are certain it's working you can upload the firmware. (follow the magellan website instructions) Make sure you have plenty of battery power and the connections are sound, failure to do could result in the paper-weight issue above. I'll try to get back to everyone about the details of making a full mount. I'll need to go back over the process and maybe make some changes since not everyone has access to a the materials and tools I used. I'm sure I can change it enough to make a "hardware store" version. AR-kayaker

First let me ask you this...are you ONLY going to do a one time upgrade to the software/firmware or do you think you'll want to upload maps and waypoints later? For a one time upgrade there is a shortcut of sorts so that you don't have to build up a whole cable. On the other hand if you have the bare-wire connector already (the connector with the four pins for the back of the gps) you might as well go ahead and make a full data- and/or power-cable. They come in real handy uploading waypoints and maps. I made mine complete from scratch both to avoid the cost and because I wanted a craddle I could just set it in and be connected instead of having to turn the little thumbscrew each time. But then I work in a shop with lots of tools and such so that I only had to supply the plastic and other expendible materials.

It does say in the guidelines that military bases are taboo, however as with any rule, common sense should be used as to when to apply it. Like someone already said, many military installations are being closed to public access for security reasons, but there are bound to be a few that aren't for one reason or another. We have one near me in fact that is an active base but only a small part of it is marked off as restricted access. The remainder of the base (several sqaure miles worth that used to be used for field manuvers) is open to the public. During hunting season you can even get a permit (on top of the standard state permit) and hunt deer on that section of the base. AR_kayaker

No. It uses Micro SD. Wel that kinda kills my plan to buy an x series Garmin. I was (am) looking upgrade from my SporTrak Pro to something with removable memory, but I don't want anything that isn't going to use an industry standard memory. My camera, PDA and MP3 player all use the standard SD card which allows me to use the same 1GB card for all of them. Less different things to keep track of and it makes it easy to move whatever kind of data I'm working with at any given moment. Do any of the current GPS units use standard SD memory?

Thanks guys. With this information in hand I was able to build a dash-mountable power/data cradle that the unti will just slip into and fit against the contacts. Better than the clunky screw-on cable I saw at the store and it cost less too.

I have a question about how the different GPSr's handle the "distance to target" function. On mine anything less than .1 miles is displayed as feet (528 and less) automatically with no option for displaying anything longer in feet...(though you can switch to metrics) Is this true of all units or do some use a different minimum distance/have programable options? AR_Kayaker

How old is your computer? A lot of the older CD drives have trouble with the newer disks, especially anything on a CD-R/RW disk. That can also be true the other way around (new CD-rom, old disks). They are supposed to make the disks/drives all backward compatable to older equiptment, but they often let some slip though the quality control cracks thinking that there aren't enough people out there with mis-matched equiptment that will complain.

I recently got my first GPSr, a Magellan SporTrak Pro, for cheap at a yardsale. It even came with the Mapsend software. What it didn't come with was the data or power cables and I really don't think they are worth $20 each for something that only consists of a couple of wires. I have all the equiptment to make my own (for less than $2 each) except for one thing...the knowledge of which of the four contacts on the back of the GPSr are which. There should be a power-in (hot), a data+ in, a data- out, and a ground....but which one is which? The ends that go to the cigarette lighter/computer are easy, it's the GPSr end I need. Is there anyone that has this cable and the electronics background to tell me which contacts are which? AR_kayaker