gcfishguy

Finally broke down and bought myself a replacement for the 60CSx. Been playing with it for a while now, but the tracks are different than I'm used to. I will be using it on the ATV, and want to have ATV trails on it. I cleaned up a bunch of trails, and I have 44 different tracks I want to drop on the GPS. Problem is....you have to go into each one and enable "Show On Map"..?? There's GOT to be a way to send a bunch of tracks to it and have them all show on the map by default. I'm a pretty good Googler, but I haven't found the answer to this one.... :-( I'm using Mapsource (with TopoCanada V4), but have Basecamp also... I will hang onto Mapsource for as long as I possibly can. It's what I learned on, and it's what I like. In truth, Basecamp's only fault is that it isn't Mapsource..... Anyway....I upgraded to the 20 for paperless caching, but being able to store 200 tracks as opposed to 20 was a BIG factor....they can't expect you to joystick in and out of 200 tracks to enable each one of them? Thanks!!!

Okay, so the 20/30 have a 500 gpx limit and a 5000 cache limit. So, I can have 5 gpx's loaded with 1000 caches each, and it does not take up space in my regular waypoints area? Another question....(sorry).... I use my GPS for keeping track of ATV-related waypoints and tracks. Can I have a GPX file for region x, with 200 waypoints and 200 tracks in it, and another for region y with 200 waypoints and 200 tracks, and another for region z, etc etc..? I realize that the specs say it will hold 200 saved tracks, but is that on the GPS itself? (Meaning, can I have more tracks in GPX files on the card and enable them or disable them depending on the area I'm in?) Hope nobody minds the questions...this is about the only place where people seem to get down and dirty with these things and push them to the limit.... And, my 60CSx is working fine, so I want to make sure I can do the things i want before shelling out to buy another GPS that actually has a smaller screen. lol

So by dropping the PQ's on the GPS file system, it creates geocaches as waypoints, and they count against your 2000 waypoint total? I was hoping they were created as POIs and left your waypoints alone. hmmm Maybe to do that I would have to do something similar to what I'm doing now with the 60? (Import PQs into GSAK, export as a gpx and use POI loader to send the POIs to the GPS, so they don't take up waypoint space....) Anyone know if that works...? If so, can the POIs have the full cache details in them? I know, it's silly, but often I don't know which direction I'll be going in, and was often finding myself in a caching situation, but no caches for that area on the GPS...

Apologies if this was asked and answered before...searching didn't turn up anything. May upgrade from my 60CSx to an eTrex 20/30. My question is: Can I take the pocket queries that I'm using now, and drop them right into a certain folder on the 20/30? Everything I find seems to talk about running them through GSAK and/or Basecamp/Mapsource, THEN pushing them to the GPS. And I'm aware that there were some issues earlier on with pocket queries that were too large but it seems like that was cleared up with a newer firmware...confirmation on that? Thanks!

Well....There should be a test for people to post things for sale on the Internet. The seller decided to take a couple days to decide if he really wanted to sell the item. Then decided he did....arranged pick-up time again, couple hours later he changed his mind again. Some people. Anyway....will likely have to settle on an Etrex20 or 30 if I do upgrade.

Never noticed it in my searches for 'montana 650' 'montana maps', etc. Thanks !

If everything goes well, I'll be picking up a Montana 650 tomorrow (with powered cradle and suction mount for the truck, and a RAM mount and basic cradle for the ATV). I've worked my way through everything from the old yellow eTrex, Venture, legend, etc up to the 60CSx I currently use. I like having gobs of caches available every time I go out because I never know where I'll end up, so I've been loading all the caches for my province with pocket queries, converting them to POIs so I can push all 7000(or so) of them to the GPS with basic description. I also use it to keep track of ATV tracks and hiking trails, so I run my GPX of 400 or so tracks through GPX2IMG and create a transparent layer so I can see all my tracks over top of my topo map on the unit. I like fiddling and playing with the software almost as much as actually getting out and using the thing. Anyone have a minute to toss out some tips and tricks concerning the little-known things you can do, (like the stuff above)? Also interested in hearing what others have to say about different ways they have configured theirs, what works best, what firmware version works best, and so on.... Essentially, I'm like a kid on Christmas eve that knows he's getting a super cool toy but can't play with it until tomorrow. What's the largest microSD card they'll support? Going on a cruise and it'll be coming along for finding our way around on shore and doing some caches, so would it be safe/practical to use it at the beach in the water? (Not expecting top quality pictures..but being waterproof it would bring home pictures that you couldn't get with a regular point & shoot)

I guess if you have to rename and copy the img for each map product over to the Montana one by-one, finding the one that gpx2img generates shouldn't be too horrible... I'd hate to drop $500 on a 'should be'.... No offence to your answer RSAXVC! I think that Basemap vs Mapsource is just a case of things always working a certain way and then suddenly being bass-ackwards. I think I read the explanation somewhere that Mapsource is file-based and Basecamp works more like a database. I gave it a chance on more than one occasion and it just bugs me that you can't just open/close/save the way that you do with any other software. If you haven't tried gpx2img, you have to. All this junk about running stuff through 6 different programs and so on, just to make a transparent layer...gone. It's literally one click. I have all the ATV trails I've run and collected from others in one gpx..point gpx2img at that file and in a few seconds it makes a map layer out of them. Awesome program, just too bad the support seems to be dropping off. I say 'seems'...I saw a few comments like that on his forum and it's been a couple days and no reply to the email (except for the auto-reply that it was received). I'll keep my fingers crossed though. It may just be something simple to get Basecamp to see that img as a map product, but I can't figure it out. Hopefully it's an easy fix...

Thanks folks! I'm seeing that Basecamp is prety much a must with the newer units, so the other night I uninstalled all map products, and gpx2img, and just installed TopoCanada V4, then gpx2img...determined to get more familiar with Basecamp. Well, every time I generate a map with gpx2img, it doesn't show up in the dropdown in Basecamp. I tried changing the output directory, etc...no joy. I emailed Joel, the gpx2img guy, but haven't received a reply. By the lack of activity on his help site/blog, I may not get a reply at all...not sure if it's been abandoned or what. I often update my big gpx of ATV tails, and generate a custom map and push it and the usual other topo maps and stuff to the GPS, so not being able to use gpx2img with Basecamp is a real kick in the stones. I think I could make it work with a couple other pieces of software map toolkit or something, but I spend enough time with PQ's, organizing waypoints, tracks, etc already and honestly don't feel like bringing two more pieces of software into the mess. If people are able to see the gpx2img-generated maps in the Basecamp dropdown, I'd like to know what the secret is.... Feel free to share if you know... Thanks!

Hi folks...considering upgrading to a Montana from my 60CSx. I've been doing some reading, and have a couple questions that I don't have definite answers to. Can I use Mapsource, as opposed to Basecamp? (I like Mapsource, I hate Basecamp...let's just leave it at that) When installing maps, can they be written to the internal memory (3GB), or do they have to be written to the micro SD card? I usually install several maps and overwrite them often. I have topo, city nav, a 3rd party set for the snowmobile trails, and a 4th that's built by gpx2img. I edit the 4th frequently, so I'm always resending. (It's a network of ATV trails and I add to it when I find new ones and remove ones I've collected from others that are no longer usable. Does this throw the montana for a loop? Meaning, I'm seeing that I can't go into the map setup and show or hide map products..... The latest and greatest and it can't do what the older units do? (grumble grumble) Is there any sort of issue with it using the maps and software I'm currently using? (gpx2img, etc) I can't tell you much on the snowmobile trail map...it comes as an exe, installs, and then it's in the Mapsource dropdown of map products. I don't NEED to replace the 60, so I'd rather not shell out $500 and then find that the way I'm doing things won't work with a Montana... Thanks

<I'm planning to keep my Nuvi as my car unit, and want the new hand-held for hiking, field trips, and occasional geocaching. ......I'm looking at a couple of higher-end units: Garmin Montana and Garmin 62st, for example.> Ditch the Nuvi and get the Montana. Check youtube for some videos about the profiles. Just search for montana and profiles. You select automobile profile and turn it landscape and it's a Nuvi..switch back to off-road and now it's completely changed the interface to be used as an off-road GPS. Once you start working with waypoints (for geology, life in general, and geocaching) you'll likely find that having one device to waypoints and tracks organized will be far simpler than shuffling between two. This may not be an issue for you, but in my mind, having one device that does an excellent job of both makes sense. I'm some close to selling my old 60CSx and getting a Montana. Another plus for the Montana is the screen size. I believe the 62 has the same size screen as my 60, and the only thing I don't like about it is that it's too small. Fine for navigating on foot, etc, but I use mine a lot on my ATV. The area I live in has a ton of trails and I have them all on the GPS. If you're at point A and want to end up at point B, when you zoom out far enough to see both points on the screen, the trails in between are just an overlapping blob of nothing. You have to start at one point, zoom in, pan the map, zoom out, zoom in again, pan the map.... The bigger the screen (and higher the resolution), the more stuff fits on it. That translates into (in most cases) being able to zoom out far enough to see point A and B, but still being able to see the tracks and trails in between. My father's a prospector and he says the same thing..once start getting a bunch of waypoints in one area (say, a string of soil samples) then the bigger screen really shines. Things to consider....

I appreciate the quick responses folks!! Looks like he won't be able to load up gobs of caches like he was hoping, at least right away. He'll send the ones he's interested right to the unit and we'll dive into PQs for him when we have more time. I know it sounds nuts to some to want to have so many caches on the unit, but our province is loaded with them and there's 1000's within a 30 minute drive in any direction. I got caught with nothing on the GPS in the area I was in at the time so I learned how to use GSAK to ultimately generate POIs with custom names so I'm not caught short again. :-) Other hobbies took over for the last while but planning on getting back into it as soon as the woods dry up a bit in a few weeks. Thanks again!! And sorry about the 'infraction'....thanks for letting me know.

You mean eTrex30, rather than nuvi? If not, you lost me. :-) Given that I've never used a unit that can handle caches in GPX, I'm running blind....but unless I'm mistaken, the idea of the unit being able to use a gpx is to let you drop the files right on the gps, and avoid having to use GSAK and macros and all that. (No offense Clyde!!) :-)

Wasn't aware that couldn't be shared.. gotcha. Scrap that idea. Would there be a coupon number or promo code or something for Groundspeak in the box the 20 came in? If so i could give him a hand setting up his own PQs. Oh, and I finally found the limits.... I guess the 20 will handle a max of 2000 gpx files and a max of 2000 caches. So, 10 gpx files with 200 each, or 1 with 2000, or 2 with 1000....etc. And each 'send to gps' creates its own gpx, so limited to 2000 of those. Until he decides to get a PM or not, he's sending some one-by-one, and scrapped the gpx I supplied him. Sorry again!

If this has been covered, please post a link to the how-to....thanks :-) I've been caching for a few years and am very familiar with my 60CSx and have customized the GSAK output files to run paperless and everything...but I have never used one of the newer GPSr's that can read gpx files so I'm at a loss... I have 10 rolling PQs and I load them into GSAK, GSAK creates a Regular Db and a Micro Db, puts each of the two gpx files into a folder with a custom icon (an M or an R), and I use POI loader to load them onto my 60CSx so it's pretty much paperless with the cache name shortened, the type and container and terrain and difficulty all in the cache name on the screen, hints and stuff in the description etc etc... A friend wants to try caching and got himself an eTrex 20. Just to get him started, i thought I'd download all 10 of my PQs, load them into GSAK, generate a gpx and give him that to put in the 'GPX' folder on his eTrex20. Since it's set up for paperless caching, I figured the caches would show up on the map screen and you just select them to see the details and everything. Well, it's not working. Also, I'm helping him through facebook chat, so I can't get my hands on it so it's tricky walking him through stuff. Should I just send him the 10 PQ files and have him drop those in the GPX folder rather than using the gpx that my GSAK generates? Is there a limit to the number of caches a GPX can contain, and is there a limit to the number of gpx files he can have in the 'GPX' folder? maybe it worked fine but he has to enable a 'show on map' option or something? I may just get him to sign up for a free account and use the 'send to gps' feature to get started....but would be nice if he could just load up the gpx I sent him, since it contains all the caches in our province... Trying to help him out at the moment, so if anyone has some info, post up quick. LOL Post faster! You're not posting fast enough!!!! :-) Thanks in advance if anyone can help!!

I've never actually used the trackback feature. (You can tell it to guide you backwards on your current track you're making as you walk, or you can have it guide you through a saved track.) Don't have my GPS in front of me, but you go into your track list, select one, and at the bottom you'll have a couple action options and you can move the pointer to the spot on the track you want to start navigating from, etc... Personally, I like to just have a track (like an ATV trail, for example) on the GPS and just watch the location triangle on the screen as I come up to possible turn-offs or T's in the road/trail, so I know which way to turn. Plus, it's just plain cool knowing that the trails makes a gradual left up ahead, then there's a sharp downhill, across a brook and then along the brook for 50m before joining the powerline, etc etc. It doesn't really help, but it's cool to know what's coming before you get to it... Best advice would be to play around with it before you actually NEED to use the track features, so you know how it works. Personally, for a hike or something, it's nice to have a track just to get an idea of elevation changes, water crossings, etc...and to follow your progress. Would be handy for knowing "Do I take THIS left turn, or the NEXT left turn...?" as well. I'd caution against relying on it 100% for navigation, as they can die, break, just not turn on, etc.... Always have a backup of some kind. Keep track of where you are so the map and compass will be of some good to you if you need to get it out.

I'm not aware of anyone working on anything exactly like this in my area. Anytime I check a large 'database' for tracks, trails, etc, I'm lucky to find my province at all. GPX2IMG is exactly what I was looking for...I have a LOT of tracks saved already from years of jeeping, hiking, and now, ATVing. Also, a lot of people on the local ATV site have shared gdb's and gpx's that they have collected, so after cleaning up doubles and overlaps, I have all the trails within an hour and a half's drive collected in one gpx. 2150KM so far. All I was looking for was something to take a cleaned track, and draw it on a GPS map like a line or a road. (Sorry for the lack of tech-speak). Anyway, this one fits the bill perfectly. If I ever see a group project to get trails mapped, I'll certainly contribute.

MtnHermit - Yes, they're in .GPX format. What I meant by loops was....say an ATV trail left point A, zigged and zagged to point B, then to point C and eventually ended up back at point A again. A trail like that is fairly easy to manage because it's just one line that goes until it reaches the end.....as opposed to a trail that looks like the trunk and branches of a tree, like most trail network look like....they branch off and branch off again, and to have the whole system as a track without doubling back on itself is impossible. Trouble is, it doesn't take long to fill up the 20 track limit that my 60csx has, so I'm always deleting one set of tracks and replacing it with another set, depending on where I'm going biking that day. It gets to be a big pain, especially since I never interact with the tracks, I just want the trails visible on the GPS screen. Red90 - I cannot say THANK YOU enough times. Now and again, over the past couple years, I've sat down and said, "Okay...today is the day I figure out how to draw a line on a Garmin map." After some time, I get up out of my chair with a headache and having accomplished nothing more than the last time I attempted it. Enter GPX2IMG ..... It's SO EASY. It's stupid easy. (And that's my kind of easy).... Stick all your tracks in Mapsource, save as a GPX. Open the GPX with GPX2IMG, hit 'Convert'. Done. .....No really.....Done. After that open Mapsource, and choose the GPX2IMP map in the product dropdown, and the rest is just selecting the maps, and pushing them to the GPS. I took 78 tracks, added them on as permanent trails/roads/whatever and pushed them to my GPS, less than 30 seconds, end-to-end. You can make each track a different colour (ANY colour) and width(looks like 1-4 pixels wide) if you want, make them all the same, etc... AND...any waypoints in your GPX become permanent POIs on your transparent layer....and you can change their icons and category/description and they are searchable as mapset POIs in your POI screen on the GPS...pick a food-related icon, the POI shows up under food/restaurants, etc...also, they can be routed to. The trial version will do everything I've been trying to figure out (off and on) for ages.... I already paid the $20 for the 'full' version though. Just because. By the looks of things this software is fairly new...maybe not, but it looks that way when I look at the support forums and stuff. Maybe it's been out there and I just never found it.....either way...wow. I hope this guy makes some coin on this...it takes an overly complicated process and makes it user-friendly. Good job. Now, I did find an older version of gpx2img that has no GUI. You launch it, it asked where the gpx is, and it crunches it and dumps it into mapsource. If you get the current version off the website, it includes the GUI.

Hi there. Been searching over the 'Net and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for.... I'm looking for an easy way to create trail maps...be they jeep trails, ATV trails, whatever. What I want to end up with is a map I can upload to my 60CSx that has the trails on it as the background...like a red line that's part of the background picture. I don't need to have the trails routable, or be able to interact with them at all. I just want to be able to see them and as I'm driving along a trail and be able to look down at the screen and see that the blue (or whatever colour represents the trail) line goes to the right at the 'T' coming up ahead. Just as thought you unrolled a topo map, took a marker and drew a red line on the map to represent the trail. Anything I find is about download topo maps and tracing out gold courses and so on. I honestly think that any info I'm finding is explaining how to do WAY more than what it is I want to do. But then again, maybe I'm underestimating how hard it actually is. I can sort of do this with tracks...problem is, on the ground, a trail may not make a loop, and may fork out from itself a bunch of times. In order to have a 'track' that represents all the ATV or Jeep trails in an area, you either have to make each 'branch' its own track on Mapsource, or you have to have everything doubling back on itself. Being its own track doesn't work because my 60CSx will only hold 20 tracks. I can fit one days riding into 20 tracks, but the issue comes up that I have to keep track of them and load them and unload them everytime I go riding, depending on where I'm going. That's a pain. Anyway...dumbing it down as far as possible, what I essentially want to be able to do is to open a Garmin map with Paint or something, draw a line on it to represent a trail, and then save it again....then when I look at the map on the GPS screen, I can see the line on the map. I don;t want the line to be routable, or need to interact with it at all....I just want to see it. I keep ending up at a snowmobiling site that looks to have links to videos that a member created, tutorials, zip files, etc....but none of the links work anymore. I have all the tracks already....is there a service that you can just send your tracks to and they'll 'overlay' them or something?

For a young'un I'd say watch check the online classifieds and get her one of the old eTrex models. I'd imagine one of the old yellows, green venture or blue legend would be going for next to nothing. Even a brand new yellow H goes for as low as $80 on sale here in Canada, so likely $50 or so stateside. If you find one that doesn't include a cable, they're available online, cheap. Buying a cable at the store will run you $30-$40.

Will have to check into that!

Pretty sure 'guarded' refers to a guardrail. Does around here anyway.. Either that or there's a big mean dog tied to the cache... :-)

I want to have all the caches in my province because I often found myself with caching time, but I was in an area that I had no cache data for. Like DFX said, set up PQ's by the date hidden. You see the results of the PQ right away. If you're over 500 just change the date until you get down under 500. I usually shoot for 480 or so, to allow for archived caches being re-activated later. Then use the copy feature and you get a 2nd query identical to the first. Change the name, and change the dates hidden to one day after the previous one ended. Just keep doing that. Wait...did someone say that the PQ will return 1000 results...? Where have I been?

It's only as hard as you want to make it... In order to get PQ's, load and sort them with GSAK, etc, there's definitely some learning involved. Depending on how in-depth you want to go, there's good info on these forums about how to export caches from GSAK as a GPX and then use the Garmin POI Loader to push them to the GPS as POIs. I do it that way and love it. I'm not into puzzle caches, so I'm essentially paperless. There's codes you can use for the outputs in GSAK (they allow you to put data into the name/description/notes of the POI) This lets you load thousands of caches on the gps, and because they're POIs they take next to no space on the memory card. As I drive or walk, I can see the POI icons on the screen with the GC name (minus the GC) the type of cache (regular, micro, etc) and the terrain and difficulty as the name. EX: the poi name on the screen would be something like "rz412 TR 23" Meaning, GCRZ412 Traditional Regular Terr:2 Diff:3 If it's a cache i want to do, i select it with the coursor and that opens the details. Shows me the friendly name (most of it), the date last found, the results of the last 4 logs (Found/not found) and the hint if I choose to look at it. After the find, i select it again, hit 'Save' and it saves as a waypoint. i get home, pull the waypoints off the GPS and there's all the caches i found that day. I highly recommend loading caches as POIs...just for the amount you can have. (Pretty much unlimited) Plus it leaves your waypoints uncluttered, for fishing spots or whatever you want to have on there as non-caching waypoints. Read, read, read. I've got my GSAK output tweaked so it works the best (for me anyway). if you want more details, drop me an email. my username here, at gmail dot com. I usually get upgrade-itis with electronics and blinky lights, but I've had my 60CSx for a couple years now and have no plans to move up to a different unit yet. You'll enjoy it.

I have CityNav 2009 and the newest version of TopoCanada on the 60, and what I found was that streets and highways are dead on if using the citynav maps and natural stuff like rivers/streams, etc can be off....the opposite is true with TopoCanada...topo features, brooks, lake shores, etc are dead on, roads are not. It looks like they went for accuracy for what the map was targeted for...even switching from one to the other on the PC, you can see that the roads are not in the same place in the two products.