ejnewman

Aren't the topo maps something like 30 years old? Topography may not change much in a few decades, but if you want accurate roads then you should be getting one of the road map cds. Your best bet for a good topo map is to roll your own and combine it with one of the garmin road maps using the instructions in one of the threads on the first page here.

They wanted to look at the EXIF fields in an image file though, not anything in the html source. Doing a "view source" in a web browser or html editor won't do that. Just try different image viewers in linux until you find one that lets you see that stuff.

I have a Brunton 8099 that is pretty good for the money (I can't afford a real Brunton ), but I learned how to use a compass in a surveying class and later in a field geology class so my point of view may not be the same as the typical geocacher's. The 8099 can be used as a sighting compass or as the flat kind that people use to measure stuff on maps. A good rule of thumb is that if you don't know what most of the features listed on the package are then you don't need that particular compass. edit: I would have far more faith in a geologist's compass skills than a surveyor's. A surveyor from this century, at least.

It will depend on which program you are using. Apparently the linux image viewer you are using can't read those extra fields. Try a different image viewer in linux.

I didn't see this one in this thread yet. This guy found one inside of a rubber rattlesnake.

Glad you successfully made a map. If I may ask, what area? I find the high-res NHD overkill. I modify the dbf files in excel and make it so things with names get one "type" and things without names get another. Then when i load the shapefile into mapedit I just delete the ones without names and assume they're not that important. Granted, I'm in arizona were 95% of the time 99% of the "streams" and "washes" don't have water anyway. Champaign County, east central Illinois. There is a hig-res NHD area on the very west edge of the map I did, but the rest is all medium. I actually had to combine four different sub-areas from NHD because I'm on a high spot that is the source of several different rivers going in every direction. The medium res isn't too bad around here because a lot of the streams have been straightened into drainage ditches so there are lots of straight lines and lots of streams that definitely exist, but have no names.

If you can get your map exported to a shapefile then you should be able to import it into gpsmapedit and follow the usual instructions from there.

I just followed the instructions and eventually got everything working. No high-res NHD for my area though.

But maps actually do need to be updated regularly, and it is an expensive process. Ink cartridges, however, are a legitimate case of the consumer getting ripped off. Anyway, I just followed the instructions from a little ways up the thread and now have a better-than-24k topo made from a DEM and overlaid on the regular road map in my GPS.

Just let the grandkids play with it for a few minutes. Then they can show you how it works.